THE WAR TO END ALL GERMANS
WISCONSIN SYNOD LUTHERANS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR
by
Stephen Gurgel
A Thesis Submitted in
Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts
in History
at
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
December 2012
ii
ABSTRACT
THE WAR TO END ALL GERMANS
WISCONSIN SYNOD LUTHERANS AND THE FIRST WORLD WAR
by
Stephen Gurgel
The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, 2012
Under the Supervision of Professor Rachel Buff
The First World War came to the United States to the consternation of many of its citizens,
especially its German Americans. On the home front, government officials required complete
adherence to the war effort. This also included religious adherence. The Wisconsin Synod
Lutherans, a German-speaking religious group, met tremendous difficulties during the war
years. In addition to the crusade against all things German, the synod faced religious
persecution because it doctrinally abstained from religiously sanctioning the war aims and
programs of the United States. The repression of the synod came from both patriotic citizens
and government agents who typically misunderstood or disdained the religious practices of the
synod. The situation created predicaments for German Lutherans as they attempted to serve
both God and country.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Figures ........................................................................................................................ v
List of Abbreviations ............................................................................................................. vi
Acknowledgements............................................................................................................... vii
Introduction: The Divide ....................................................................................................... 1
The First World War and a New Wave of Conflict ................................................... 11
Chapter 1: Neutrality Betrayed ............................................................................................. 17
Distant Guns Felt at Home ....................................................................................... 18
Partisans for Peace .................................................................................................. 21
On the Cusp of War.................................................................................................. 34
Chapter 2: The Machinery of Repression ............................................................................. 38
The Department of Justice and the American Protective League ........................... 40
The Committee on Public Information .................................................................... 46
Other Organizations ................................................................................................. 49
The Mob Rules ......................................................................................................... 53
Chapter 3: Combativeness .................................................................................................... 56
Reactions to the Declaration ................................................................................... 57
Notorious New Ulm ................................................................................................. 59
Church and State...................................................................................................... 71
Chapter 4: Special Visitors .................................................................................................... 78
The Anatomy of an Investigation ............................................................................. 78
Problem Areas.......................................................................................................... 82
Into Custody ............................................................................................................. 89
Rev. Edgar Guenther ................................................................................................ 91
Rev. John Gauss ....................................................................................................... 95
Rev. Otto Engel ........................................................................................................ 103
Chapter 5: Aliens, Slackers, and Lukewarm Americans ........................................................ 115
Alien Enemies........................................................................................................... 115
Slackers .................................................................................................................... 118
Other Forms of Slacking ........................................................................................... 124
Hotbeds of Kaiserism ............................................................................................... 127
Un-American Voting................................................................................................. 131
Chapter 6: Patriotism, Apologetics, and Perseverance ........................................................ 137
Soldiers and Camp Pastors....................................................................................... 139
Patriotism: Genuine, Awkward, and Ugly ................................................................ 144
Apologetics .............................................................................................................. 152
Perseverance............................................................................................................ 157
iii
iv
Conclusion: No Armistice Here ............................................................................................. 162
Selective Assimilation .............................................................................................. 165
Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 168
LIST OF FIGURES
Figure Number
0.1
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
2.1
2.2
2.3
3.1
3.2
3.3
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
4.7
4.8
4.9
4.10
4.11
4.12
4.13
4.14
5.1
5.2
5.3
5.4
5.5
5.6
5.7
6.1
6.2
6.3
6.4
6.5
6.6
6.7
C.1
Page
Rev. Hans K. Moussa (WLS Archives, Moussa Biography) .................................................. 9
Dr. Martin Luther College, 1917 (WELS Historical Journal) .............................................. 19
German Submarine Political Cartoon (Raemaker, Kultur in Cartoons)............................. 22
German-American Political Cartoon (Life Magazine) ....................................................... 24
Rev. Otto Engel, 1915 (WLS Archives, Norwalk Congregation) ........................................ 31
Professor August Ernst (WLS Archives, Ernst Biography) ................................................. 33
Face to Face with Kaiserism Advertisement (Milwaukee Journal) ................................... 37
American Protective League Badge (National Archives) .................................................. 42
Wisconsin State Council of Defense Poster (Report of WSCOD) ...................................... 51
Wisconsin Senator Paul Husting (Public Domain)............................................................. 58
New Ulm Meeting Advertisement (National Archives) .................................................... 63
Adolph Ackermann, DMLC President (WLS Archives, Ackermann Biography) ................. 68
Rev. Emil Dornfeld (WLS Archives, Marshall Congregation) ............................................. 77
Rev. Henry Boettcher, 1940 (WLS Archives, Gibbon Congregation) ................................ 83
Rev. Immanuel F. Albrecht (WLS Archives, Fairfax Congregation) ................................... 86
Rev. Emmanuel Palechek (WLS Archives, Chaseburg Congregation) ............................... 87
Rev. Herman Atrops (WLS Archives, White Congregation) .............................................. 90
Rev. Carl Auerswald (WLS Archives, Menominee Congregation) ..................................... 91
Guenther Family Photo (WLS Archives, Guenther Biography) ......................................... 92
Marlborough Churchill, Director of Military Intelligence (National Archives).................. 93
Rev. E. Edgar Guenther building desks (WLS Archives, Guenther Biography).................. 94
Minnie Guenther, National Mother of the Year (Northwestern Lutheran) ...................... 94
Rev. John Guass, 1918 (WLS Archives, Jenera Congregation) .......................................... 96
Rev. Otto Engel (WLS Archives, Norwalk Congregation) ................................................ 104
A. Bruce Bielaski, Bureau of Investigation Chief (National Archives) ............................. 105
Rev. Herman Zimmermann (WLS Archives, West Salem Congregation) ........................ 110
Idaho Alien Registration Form (National Archives) ........................................................ 116
Herman Roeder's Naturalization Photograph (National Archives) ................................. 117
Rev. John Dejung, Jr. (WLS Archives, Dejung Biography) ............................................... 123
Confirmation Class, Zion Lutheran (WLS Archives, Olivia Congregation) ....................... 129
St. Peter's Gemeindeschule (WLS Archives, Fond du Lac Congregation)........................ 131
Victor Berger Poster (National Archives) ........................................................................ 132
Emil Seidel's Visit to Theresa (Wisconsin Historical Society) .......................................... 133
Rev. Carl W. Siegler (WLS Archives, Siegler Biography) .................................................. 137
Confiscated Lutheran Church Board Pamphlet (National Archives) ............................... 142
Rev. Arthur Sydow with his Wife (WLS Archives, Sydow Biography) ............................. 143
Rev. Otto Engel with St. Jacob's Frauverein (WLS Archives, Norwalk Cong.) ................. 146
St. Peter's Frauverein (WLS Archives, Fond du Lac Congregation) ................................. 146
Rev. August Stock (WLS Archives, August Stock Biography) .......................................... 149
Rev. Julius Engel (WLS Archives, Elkton Congregation) .................................................. 158
Rev. G.E. Bergemann (WLS Archives, Fond du Lac Congregation) ................................. 164
v
vi
LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS
APL
American Protective League: A citizen auxiliary to the Justice Department during
the First World War with an estimated 250,000 members.
CPI
Committee on Public Information: The head propaganda organization of the
federal government. It proactively sought cooperation with churches across the
country to both "Americanize" and promote the war effort.
CPS
The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety: One of the many state
organizations across the nation to promote proper war behavior and to police
activities deemed harmful to the success of the United States.
DMLC
Doctor Martin Luther College: A teacher-training college for the parochial
schools of the Wisconsin Synod.
OG
Old German Files: A 594 reel collection of microfilm of reports from the Justice
Department and American Protective League Operatives, mostly concerning
German Americans.
WELS
Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod: At the time called the General Synod of
Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, and Other States, or the Wisconsin Synod for
short. The synod was created through a federation of the Wisconsin, Minnesota,
and Michigan Synods in 1892, whereby they fully amalgamated into one synod
in 1917.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For this project, I received a general outpouring of assistance from many
selfless individuals. Special thanks especially goes out to my parents, Richard
and Susan Gurgel, who read and reread manuscripts and helped straighten out
my arguments. Kristin Freimuth graciously proofread my work and found
countless grammatical and structural flaws which had escaped my eyes over and
over again. Any further mistakes are likely from my additions to the project that
came after her editing. My advisor, Rachel Buff, had excellent insight and was
very supportive. She discovered holes in many of my early assumptions and
helped make this a more well rounded product. Professors from my
undergraduate work at Martin Luther College, Paul Koelpin, David Schroeder,
and Jonathan Balge, each gave insight and encouragement in my work.
During my search for source materials, I received help from so many
individuals that I will unfortunately forget a few. The librarians at the Wisconsin
Lutheran Seminary, Cathy Zell and Jean Korthals, were splendid. They
acquainted me with old synod publications and archives, and offered
suggestions for other materials to use. I formally apologize here for often
keeping them late at work. The staff at the Minnesota State Historical Society
was very organized and knowledgeable, and they made my stay in the Twin
Cities an efficient one. At the Brown County Historical Society, Darla Gebhard
had an excellent command over the archives and helped me make many great
discoveries.
As I examined congregational records, many church members and
pastors took time out of their busy schedules to assist me. They dug through
their files, asked around, and/or gave me leads for my research. The long list
includes Barb Manthey, Roy Hefti, Kevin Draper, Ruth Hage, Galen Riediger, Joel
Stuebs, Percy Damrow, Cheryl Smith, John Fields, Elaine Quast, Daniel Falck,
Ethan Wessell, Ana Stern, Troy Schreiner, Kailey White, Melissa Sentowski, Scott
Hegman, Samuel Korth, Aaron Duve, Ryan Halter, Levi Dunsmoor, Mish Al-Eisa,
Steve Oldre, Jeffrey Weber, Helen Hacht, Mark Wessel, Matthew Schoell, Joshua
Kesting, Debbie Hilker, Andy Straseske, Timothy Henning, Spencer Biga, and
Brian Keller, among others.
Perhaps the most remarkable work done for my project was by Arnold
Koelpin, a retired professor from Martin Luther College. He meticulously worked
through translating church meeting minutes which were written by a church
secretary with very poor handwriting (but who am I to judge). These
translations made an invaluable addition to my project. Furthermore, the
viii
sources I value most are personal memories and histories. Pastor Reginald
Siegler, who passed the century mark in age this year, gave fascinating accounts
of the war from his childhood. Special thanks to his daughter, Susan Siegler, for
arranging the interview. Richard and Lois Balge also happily volunteered
personal stories from family members, acquaintances, and other sources. The
daughter of Rev. John Gauss, Gerda, and her husband, Aldred, provided me with
rare and fascinating materials concerning the difficulties Gauss faced during the
war. Overall, I was blessed with so many great materials that it felt as if this
project wrote itself. All these great individuals made this possible.
Introduction
The Divide
On 4 November 1890, Wisconsin Synod Lutherans, "red hot and in
fighting trim," swarmed to the polling places across Wisconsin.1 They
endeavored to elect candidates to the Wisconsin State Legislature who
promised to strike down the "oppressive and tyrannical" Bennett Law, passed
the previous year by a Republican legislature. The Bennett Law was a
compulsory education law meant to battle child labor and illiteracy. However,
its provisions deeply affected the church schools of the Wisconsin Synod.
English became the only accepted medium for all core subjects, a clause meant
to strike at the German-language education of the Lutheran parochial schools.
Students could only attend schools within their education districts. This also
caused problems for the parochial schools, which often drew students from a
number of districts. Furthermore, compulsory school days did not recognize the
Lutheran calendar, which made the "celebration of weekday church holidays
impossible."2 The election was a rout, with Wisconsin Synod towns like Berlin
voting as high as 96.8% Democratic.3 The Republicans were buried by what
Democratic Party members termed "the Lutheran land-slide."4
The election was a culmination of a year's worth of rhetoric and
organization against the Bennett Law. The Wisconsin Synod created a
committee within a month of its passage, which concluded, "the purpose of the
Bennett Law was hostile to our schools and would bring terrible results." After
giving twelve reasons to substantiate the claim, the synod published a
statement:
1
Edward C. Wall to Ellis Usher, 11 June 1890, in Usher MSS, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
"Synode Ausschussbericht," Gemeindeblatt 24:22 (15 July 1889), 172. This likely referred to
midweek observances for Lent and Advent, as well as Reformation celebrations.
3
Voting results found in Paul Kleppner, Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics
1850-1900, (New York: Free Press, 1970), 138.
4
H.C. Payne to E.W. Keyes, 7 November 1890, Keyes MSS, State Historical Society of Wisconsin.
2
The War to End all Germans
2
We are not enemies of the public schools; we consider them and declare them to be a
necessary institution. We are ever willing to pay our taxes for the support of the public
schools…But we insist upon enjoying the privilege of founding private schools with our
own means of regulating and governing them, without external interference, according
5
to our conviction.
In February 1890, nineteen Wisconsin and Missouri Synod Lutheran
congregations in Milwaukee passed a joint resolution which denounced the law
and pledged to support only those candidates who promised its repeal. They
believed a movement was afoot "to completely destroy parochial schools."6 The
Milwaukee Democratic platform appeased this sentiment and condemned the
law as "wholly uncalled for, and uselessly harsh and unjust; and infringing on the
liberty of conscience and on the natural right of parental control over their
children."7 The synod publication, the Gemeindeblatt, urged pastors to "watch
their local papers so that they may continue to fight the enemy publicly where
necessary."8 The synod committee volunteered to help such pastors wherever
they needed it.
Supporters of the Bennett Law fought with the same fervor as the
German Lutherans. To them, the future of the public school was at stake, and
the parochial alternative was a thorn in the side to both the "little red
schoolhouse" and Americanization. Not a day passed in February and March,
1890, without the Milwaukee Sentinel publishing an editorial or letters to the
editor regarding the Bennett Law. The Sentinel defended the law, attacked its
opponents, and gave exposés of American-born adults who could not converse
in English. "The great principle…of the right of the state to control the secular
education of children," the Sentinel argued, "has been challenged."9 In an
argument which sounds ironic today, Bennett Law partisans asserted that the
rapid growth of school-aged children attending parochial schools meant that the
"Christianizing influences of the common school are being denied to an
increasingly large number of the next generation."The common school "stood
for knowledge, liberty and virtue," and in opposition "to ignorance, to
5
"Beschlusse der Synode uber die Schulfrage," Gemeindeblatt 24:22 (15 July 1889), 172.
"Bekanntmachung wegen des Bennett Gesetzes," Gemeindeblatt 25:15 (1 April 1890), 120.
7
Kleppner, 159.
8
"Sonstige Schritte der Schulbehörden gegen Gemeindeschulen," Gemeindeblatt 25:16 (15 April
1890), 126.
9
Roger E. Wyman, "Wisconsin Ethnic Groups and the Election of 1890," Wisconsin Magazine of
History 51:4, Summer 1968, 271; Kleppner, 160. The Sentinel specifically attacked Lutherans for
their position on the Bennett Law. Explicitly referring to a growing political union between
Lutherans and Catholics, the Republican organ warned Lutheran voters that they should not ally
with "the devil's own grandmother" simply to win an election.
6
The Divide
3
superstition, to immorality and wrong doing."10 The arguments could even get
personal. Republican governor William Hoard publically stated that Lutheran
pastors and congregations took an oath "to darken the understanding of young
people." The Sentinel implied that the anti-Bennett Law movement was
provoked by Lutheran pastors, whom the people followed blindly.11 Both sides
fought this way, however. After the monumental victory, the Gemeindeblatt
offered a statement "with heartfelt thanks to God, who put to shame the
purposes of the fanatic, native-born enemies of…the German parochial schools,
and has given to us the victory in the fight against the enemies of the Church
and to the citizens the victory of freedom and knowledge."12
The Bennett Law episode highlighted a religious fault line which
continually factored into the politics of the late nineteenth century Midwest.
The support of the Bennett Law predominated from evangelical Protestants–of
which most Methodists, Congregationalists, United Brethren, Baptists, and
revivalist Presbyterians can be classified. Evangelicalism was a pietistic religious
and social movement with roots in both the Reformation era and Great
Awakenings. Evangelicals emphasized a "personal, vital, and fervent faith in a
transcendental God."13 Their religious customs focused on conversion and
personal piety, a general informality and emotionalism in worship observances,
and ecumenicism (endorsement of Christian unity with or without doctrinal
agreement).14
10
Kleppner, 160, 168.
"Allerlei zum Bennett-Gesetz," Gemeindeblatt 25:20 (15 June 1890), 156-157.
12
"Das neue Schulgesetz des Staates Wisconsin," Gemeindeblatt 26:22 (15 July 1891), 172.
13
Wyman, 274; Kleppner, 173.
14
Brian W. Beltman, "Rural Church Reform in Wisconsin during the Progressive Era," Wisconsin
Magazine of History 60:1 (Autumn 1976), 12. The use of a blanket term for these religious groups
has proven to be problematic. German Lutherans called these groups "sectarians," but this
ecclesiastical term did not have much use beyond German Lutherans, and is no longer used by
them today. Paul Kleppner, in his book Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern Politics,
1850-1900, used the term "Pietists." While this term properly highlights the main issue–that of
using secular control to enforce religious piety–it can cause confusion because many pietistic
religious groups, such as the Mennonites, Hutterites, or the Amish, stressed personal piety but
were withdrawn from society. Thus the term "evangelical" is being used, mostly along the same
lines as religious historian William J. Phalen used in his American Evangelical Protestantism and
European Immigrants, 1800-1924. Brian Beltman also favored this dichotomy in his article "Rural
Church Reform in Wisconsin during the Progressive Era." Despite that this term is somewhat ex
post facto, its usage in the mid to late twentieth century accurately exemplifies these groups.
Perhaps the biggest stumbling block of this term is that "evangelical" is part of the current synod
title–the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. The use of word "evangelical" by the synod,
however, is very narrow: the church teaches justification by grace through faith. Evangelicalism in
11
The War to End all Germans
4
Evangelicals viewed the world as sinful, but did not accept this fate.
Instead, they felt compelled to purge the world of sin through earthly means.
The life of an evangelical, then, became a series of efforts and opportunities to
create the world anew to the glory of a personally knowable God. The first way
to accomplish this was by changing hearts through conversion. Their informal
worship setting and ecumenicism created an ideal environment to attract
newcomers. When instruction and exhortation failed, evangelicals attempted to
reform the "sinner" through what the Gemeindeblatt termed "Gewalt," or
"violence" (secular laws).15 Few can summarize it better than the Presbyterian
minister John Marquis in 1917, "It is the business of religion to make the world a
dangerous place for evil and evil-doers."16 To this end, evangelicals used all
possible means to purge the world from sin. They disregarded distinctions
between church and secular, preached on "Christian living," and used terms
such as "oneness of life."17 Wisconsin Synod writers used a now defunct term,
"sectarians," to refer to evangelicals. "Sectarians" were Christians with "a legal
mind," wrote the Gemeindeblatt. Therefore, "They believe that the kingdom of
God…is a state with a law book that will live up to all of God's holy and righteous
demands."18 Secular legalism became a powerful means to accomplish this
goal, especially when pertaining to prohibition, gambling, and Sabbatarianism.
As seen during the Bennett Law controversy, the common school system was
another special reform tool of the evangelicals. Bible readings typically took up
school time with the goal to inculcate a specific set of values in the younger
generation. Curricular materials simply assumed a Protestant evangelical
consciousness. Said a common school advocate in 1918, "The foundation of
American and true Christianity lies in the free public school system instead of
the parochial."19
Wisconsin Synod minister F. Schumann asserted that one could spot a
"sectarian" preacher "if he lends himself to take over the role of a social
its broader sense usually entailed postmillennialism, personal "acceptance" of Christ, a focus on
morals, secular legalism, and ecumenicism; all of these the synod rejected.
15
W. Hoenecke, "Etliche Fragen über Prohibition," Gemeindeblatt 53:3 (1 February 1918), 37-38.
16
F. Graeber, "Press Censorship and Religious Liberty," Northwestern Lutheran 4:13 (7 July 1917),
101.
17
Kleppner, 174.
18
W. Hoenecke, "Etliche Fragen über Prohibition," Gemeindeblatt 53:3 (1 February 1918), 37-38.
19
John Jenny, "Would Eliminate Parochial Schools," Northwestern Lutheran 5:8 (21 April 1918),
61-62; William J. Phalen, American Evangelical Protestantism and European Immigrants, 18001924 (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2011), 7. Emphasis is mine.
The Divide
5
reformer."20 Because evangelicals usually viewed the state as a vehicle to purify
society, their ministers preached that America was "God's chosen nation," and
unapologetically entered the political fray to reform and uplift the society
around them. At a time when postmillennialist beliefs were widespread, many
evangelicals believed that the second coming of Christ would occur after the
millennium–a thousand year establishment of the kingdom of God on earth
through human effort. As one Illinois Baptist pastor put it, "Let us pray for His
coming, and vote as we pray!"21 In February 1917, the Gemeindeblatt even
published an exposé of a Methodist minister, R.D. Snyder, who believed that
"many votes cannot be counted at elections because they are not correctly
marked." Snyder conducted a "school of balloting" at his church, where he
passed out sample ballots at the morning service, which were "marked during
the day and turned in at the evening service."22 These ballots would typically be
marked for the Republican Party of the late 19th century, which termed itself
"the party of great moral ideas."23 The party became a vehicle to transmit
evangelical pietistic norms into the society around them. When an evangelical
minister asked his parishioners whether a "Christian" could "go to the Lord's
table on Sunday and vote for [Democrat presidential candidate] Cleveland on
Tuesday," the response was overwhelmingly negative.24
The German Lutherans who arrived in the United States during the
nineteenth century encountered this American religious culture very much
dominated by the pietistic characteristics of American evangelicalism. These
Lutherans repeated to these "sectarians" what Luther told the followers of
Ulrich Zwingli in 1529: "Ihr habt einen andem Geist als wir," (You have a
different spirit than we).25 The evangelicals also identified something different
about these foreigners' beliefs and customs. At a Wisconsin Baptist convention
in 1886, it was concluded that "Emigration from the Old World is pouring in
upon its hordes of Papal and infidel propagandists….Their influx corrupts
20
Heinrich Gieschen, "Sechsundsechzigste Conference der Wisconsin Synod," Gemeindeblatt
51:15 (1 August 1916), 229.
21
Baptist minister quote found in Edward P. Brand, Illinois Baptists (Bloomington, Illinois, 1930),
60.
22
Friederich Soll, "Die beiden Bäume," Gemeindeblatt 52:4 (15 February 1917), 57-58.
23
Kleppner, 75.
24
Cleveland quote found in Laurence M. Larson, The Log Book of a Young Immigrant (Northfield,
MN: Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1939), 113.
25
Quote can be found in Joel Fredrich, "A Different Spirit," Essay File, Wisconsin Lutheran
Seminary Library, Node 566.
The War to End all Germans
6
morality and Christianity among us."26 As more and more of these German
Lutherans and Catholics arrived, a major question became how much these
newcomers would assimilate to the culture around them. To the frustration of
many Americans, the German Lutherans of the Wisconsin Synod and Missouri
Synod became famous, or infamous, for their steadfastness in their ethnic,
cultural, and religious nature.
These German Lutherans, as well as American Catholics, had a "liturgical
nature" which contrasted with the pietistic evangelicalism around them–even
with so-termed "American Lutherans." These liturgical groups comprised the
stronghold against the Bennett Law in 1890. The liturgical nature of the
Wisconsin Synod stemmed from its belief that the "kingdom of God" should not
be "of the world." This is strongly reflected in the beliefs and worship practices
of the synod. Rather than deciphering God's will concerning current events and
popular themes of society, Wisconsin Synod worship followed a yearly calendar
based on prearranged Biblical stories and passages. Believing the Bible to be the
inspired word of God and therefore completely infallible, the Wisconsin Synod
stressed assent to its prescribed doctrines. Therefore, they placed emphasis on
formal doctrine, traditional Lutheran Confessions, and ritual in worship
practices–the liturgy. This contrasted with the emotionalism of evangelical
worship. Wisconsin Synod minister Frederich Soll even admitted, "our sermons
are correct, but cold and stiff."27 Lutheranism's emphasis, rather than the right
behavior of the evangelicals, was a right belief which came from God and the
Bible. Where evangelicals condemned immoral behavior, the Wisconsin Synod
reviled with equal fervency what they considered false doctrine–subordination
of the message of "free salvation" by one of "Christian living."28
Furthermore, liturgical Christians believed they lived in an inscrutable
and sinful world created by an unfathomable God. Instead of viewing America
as "God's chosen nation," they believed the postmillennial goal to create the
kingdom of heaven on earth to be an impossible crusade.29 Said Martin Luther in
his work, On Secular Authority, "It is out of the question that there should be a
common Christian government over the whole world, or indeed over a single
26
Minutes of the Wisconsin Baptist Anniversaries (Milwaukee, WI: Wisconsin Baptist State
Convention, 1953), 8.
27
Friederich Soll, "Die beiden Bäume," Gemeindeblatt 52:4 (15 February 1917), 57-58.
28
A popular slogan which evangelicals used was "deeds, not creeds." This should not in any way
indicate a solidarity between Lutherans and Catholics in this period. Rather, Republican strategists
found that the best way to lower Lutheran voter turnout was to portray the Democrats as the
party of "the antichrist."
29
Kleppner, 73.
The Divide
7
country or any considerable body of people."30 These churches, then, especially
the Wisconsin and Missouri Synods, had a laissez-faire attitude toward
government and morality–as long as the behavior was reciprocal. "Thank God
Luther never was a politician," wrote a Wisconsin Synod pastor, "He was always
nothing more–neither anything less–than a preacher of the Gospel."31 The
secular state typically did not keep its end of the bargain. Pietistic legalism
promoted by evangelicals "made sin what is not sin," and undermined the
"freedom of a Christian."32 Liquor was fine in moderation, and beer drinking was
a cherished German tradition for both Lutherans and Catholics. The "Puritan"
Sabbath and other pietistic norms of conduct also found no place in Lutheran
doctrine. Rev. Friedrich Schmid, the father of the Michigan Synod–eventually
the Michigan District of the Wisconsin Synod–wrote already in 1833: "It is
disheartening how most Christians...search from the outside to make
themselves [holy]. They make laws which no one is in a position to obey."33
While the theological arguments underlying the issues may have escaped some
synod lay-members, prohibition agitation by evangelicals served as a constant
reminder to what set them apart. The Wisconsin Synod understood the effects
of their nonconformity. "Let us not be deceived," wrote Wisconsin Synod
seminary professor August Pieper, "the sectarian churches consider the
Lutheran church as a hindrance to culture, a danger to state and society."34
While the word "counterculture" would not be coined until decades
later, it is clear the Wisconsin Synod looked to establish a religious
counterculture apart from what historian Martin Marty called the "evangelical
empire."35 As a counterculture, this group by conviction opposed nearly all
means of integration into a broader American society. By doing so, they hoped
to avoid following the same course as the "American Lutherans" who came
before them, who–according to German Lutherans–subordinated Lutheran
30
Martin Luther and John Calvin, Luther and Calvin on Secular Authority (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991), 45;
31
Hans Koller Moussa, "The Birth of Freedom," Northwestern Lutheran 4:21 (7 November 1917),
171-173.
32
Murray Rothbard, History of Money and Banking in the United States: The Colonial Era to World
War II (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 1994), 174.
33
Karl Neidhard, "Reise Nach Michigan im Sommer 1834," Michigan History Magazine 35 (1951),
47.
34
August Pieper, "The True Reconstruction of the Church," Theologische Quartalschrift 62
(Reprinted, 1965), 193.
35
Martin Marty, Pilgrims in their own Land: 500 Years of Religion in America (New York: Penguin,
1985), 7.
The War to End all Germans
8
tenets to evangelicalism.
However, given the expansive nature of
evangelicalism and its practice of ecumenicism, this remained a tall order for
German Lutherans. A factor in favor of preserving this counterculture was that
an overwhelming majority of Wisconsin Synod Lutherans worked as
independent farmers or lived in small towns. This lifestyle involved less
integration with the differing culture around them. Thus many German
Lutherans consistently advocated the perceived paradox of being against both
"big business" and "big labor," since both of these looked for an American
cohesion for which the German Lutherans were not ready. This counterculture
also explains the synod's dogged opposition to lodges and fraternities, which
were well-known for their opposition to formal doctrine and their support of
religious legalism–both major principles of evangelicalism. Membership in a
lodge could even mean exclusion from the German Lutheran religious
community. The biggest threat to the counterculture, however, always
remained the public school, with its baldly stated goals of integration, and often
"Christianization" into the evangelical mold. Correctly perceiving the common
school as a system to inculcate evangelical pietistic norms, both Catholics and
German Lutherans fostered parochial schools as vehicles to transmit their own
religious values to their young in a country where they were a minority.
Throughout all periods, German Lutherans passionately supported the
Constitution of the United States because they believed its principles of
freedom of speech, religion, and of limited government intrusion sanctioned
their attempts to foster a distinct society on American soil.36
While Catholics created their own geographic parishes and relied on an
international church hierarchy to preserve their religious culture, German
Lutherans did not have this option. The key component to the perpetuation of
this counterculture, therefore, became the German language. After the
Northwestern Lutheran, a Wisconsin Synod bi-weekly, discussed the assimilation
of other German Americans, it claimed,
We…have done considerably better. Go into the country, where there are German
churches with schools, and you will be surprised how German everybody is. I know [a
synod town] where English had to be taught as a foreign language to the second
generation when they entered school! [While] this is certainly not an accomplishment, it
36
More extensive synod demographics can be found in Edward C. Fredrich, The Wisconsin Synod
Lutherans: A History of the Single Synod, Federation, and Merger (Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern
Publishing House, 1992), 2-5; Constitutional references will be listed on page 195 of this project.
The Divide
9
may be rather pleasing in the eyes of such who accuse us German-Americans that we do
37
not remain German enough.
Indeed, even by 1910, only three percent of congregations in the Wisconsin and
Missouri Synods used English as their primary language.38 This contrasted with
the more rapid abandonment of the German
language by Baptists, Methodists, and other
German evangelicals who felt no fear of religious
assimilation.
Many
Wisconsin
Synod
congregations still followed clauses in their
constitutions requiring the German language. St.
Peter Lutheran in Plymouth, Michigan, for
example, still adhered to Article 3 in 1917, which
read, "the church services as well as the
instruction of the young must be held in the
German language in this congregation."39 At St.
Paul Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota, 138
families were subscribed to the Wisconsin Synod's
German language publication, the Gemeindeblatt,
in 1919. Two had subscribed to the newly0.1: Hans Koller Moussa,
established English bi-weekly, the Northwestern
Northwestern Lutheran Editor
40
Lutheran. English was practiced in varying
degrees across the synod, however. After failed attempts in previous years,
Grace Lutheran in Milwaukee, contemplated restarting supplementary services
in the English language in 1913. The church secretary reported, "After many
pros and cons, it was decided that this would be valuable and necessary."41 On
the far end of the spectrum, St. Johannes (John) of Jefferson put English on the
same footing as German in school in 1908 "because the younger generation
was turning more and more to the English language."42 Their pastor, Hans Koller
37
Frederich Meyer, "The German-Americans," The Northwestern Lutheran 3:17 (7 September
1916), 134-136.
38
Language stats found in Mark Braun, "Being good Americans and better Lutherans: Synodical
Conference Lutherans and the Military Chaplaincy, WELS Historical Institute Journal 19 (2001), 24.
Most of the English speaking churches were located in missions outside the Midwest, such as
Washington state.
39
Church History of St. Peter, Plymouth, MI, (WLS Archives, Plymouth File), 26.
40
Morton Schroeder, "Adolph Ackermann, Chauvinism, and Free Speech," WELS Historical
Institute Journal 2 (1984), 13.
41
Quarterly Meeting Minutes of Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI, October 1913.
42
Diamond Jubilee of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of St. John, Jefferson, WI, 1851-1926, 26.
The War to End all Germans
10
Moussa, of Arab name and descent, became the predominant English writer for
the Northwestern Lutheran.43
As the Republican Party increased its reputation as the "party of great
moral ideas," liturgical Christians generally cast their lot with the opposing
party. The Democrats declared themselves to be the party of "personal liberty,"
and German Lutherans aligned with it to stave off political attacks on their
liquor and parochial schools from the "pietist fanatics."44 Being highly liturgical,
Wisconsin Synod Lutherans voted Democrat "virtually to a man" during the late
nineteenth century.45 The towns of Theresa and Berlin, Wisconsin, both
predominated by Wisconsin Synod Lutherans, consistently voted over ninety
percent Democratic. This was the norm until 1896, when the Democrats
nominated a populist, but pietist, William Jennings Bryan, as its presidential
candidate. The voter turnout dropped in disgruntled Lutheran districts, and
some even deferred to the Republicans. Even after the political environment
turned ambiguous during the progressive era, polemics from both sides kept the
struggle fully animated.
This religious political struggle often crossed ethnic lines, blurring the
popularly accepted "immigrant and native" dichotomy of party politics. German
evangelicals, such as Baptists, Methodists, and many Congregationalists,
typically voted for the "party of great moral ideas."46 During the Bennett Law
contest, German evangelicals were even more adamant in their support for the
law than their "Yankee" allies. Amid the struggle, the German United Brethren
reported in a conference that "A foe to the common school has arisen in the
foreign immigrant element, with foreign ideas and customs, who in the name of
religion and personal liberty threaten the life of our time-honored American
free-school system."47 The use of the word "foreign" by this immigrant group is
telling. The German United Brethren felt they could claim Americanism because
43
James P. Schaefer, "Hans Koller Moussa," Forward in Christ 76:10 (May 1989). Moussa was
exceptionally gifted. Chicago University, aware of his knowledge of no less than 14 languages,
considered him a prospective president. He sometimes singlehandedly carried issues of the
Northwestern Lutheran in its humble early days. His early death in 1928 at the age of 44 was
deeply felt across the synod.
44
Rothbard, 174.
45
Voting records compiled in Paul Kleppner, Cross of Culture: A Social Analysis of Midwestern
Politics 1850-1900, (New York: Free Press, 1970), 138, 333.
46
Ibid, 37, 78. Kleppner's compiled voting records religiously homogonous towns to analyze these
groups.
47
United Brethren of Christ, Wisconsin Annual Conference Records, 1890, 41-42, MSS, State
Historical Society of Wisconsin, microfilm, emphasis is mine.
The Divide
11
of their "American" ideas and religious customs. In the "evangelical empire,"
immigrant groups with similar religious beliefs could be more easily assimilated
than those who differed. Especially among the Germans, religion played a key
role in determining how smooth the Americanization process could be.
As the Bennett Law controversy showed, both of these groups feared
the other would subvert their value system. Liturgical Christians felt their
institutions and ways of life were under consistent attack from the "pietist
fanatics" who attempted to enlist Gewalt–governmental decrees–to reform
their churches and society as a whole. On the other hand, evangelical Christians
felt their way of life was threatened by the disparate institutions and "immoral
behavior" of the liturgical groups, the Wisconsin Synod being one of them. As
many evangelicals believed, the German Lutheran presence alone could even
forestall Christ's second coming. This struggle ebbed and flowed throughout the
late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and reached its crescendo during
the "holy war" for Democracy, the First World War.
II. The First World War and a New Wave of Conflict
At the start of the First World War in Europe in 1914, the German
ethnicity of the Wisconsin Synod naturally created animosity with groups more
apt to support Great Britain or France. This ethnic divide during the war is selfevident, and, frankly, requires minute analysis. It cannot be avoided,
nonetheless, and will play a major part in the narrative of the Wisconsin Synod's
difficulties on the "home front." What histories have left mostly untouched,
however, is the religious aspect of the wartime divide. This evangelical and
liturgical division, very much alive before the war, reared its ugly head once the
First World War moved to the forefront of political discourse. A plausible reason
for this omission is that historians, like many contemporaries of the war, were
so caught up in the ethnic features of the German Lutherans that many religious
aspects to their objections and persecutions were left unconsidered. Both
religious groups, however, displayed behavior during the war consistent with
their religious nature.
The evangelicals were especially consistent. In an article titled "Religious
Freedom Endangered," Wisconsin Synod seminary professor John Schaller
discussed the activities of the "sectarian" churches during the First World War.
"You get the impression," wrote Schaller, "that the church has outgrown the
The War to End all Germans
12
real Gospel and has put on the habiliments of the political agitator."48 The
evangelical habit of "reforming" the world to meet "all of God's holy and
righteous demands" led many to enter the political arena. During the war, God's
"holy and righteous demands" called for a crusade to "civilize" Europe and to
defend and spread democracy, the "holiest form of government." In short, the
First World War was an opportunity to reform not only American society, but
the world. This is plain in slogans such as "the war to end all wars." Most
evangelical churches did not even wait for the declaration to get involved. In his
book, Is Preparedness for War Unchristian?, Baptist clergyman Leonard
Broughton concluded, "Preparedness…in this country is distinctly Christian, and
in keeping with the highest principles of American statesmanship. And that a
man, however sincere he may be, who sets himself against it, is not a friend of
his country."49 Another clergyman wrote, "Our moral sense as a nation is dulled.
Morally we have lost our way. Our present lack of a national spirit is due also in
part to a vast amount of well-meant but mistaken and really unchristian
teaching about peace."50
A typically informal worship routine and a chief focus on "Christian
living" that often pertained to current events also made evangelical church
bodies perfect candidates to assist the state in its war efforts. These churches
eagerly enlisted to raise war funds, organized patriotic events, and roused the
public's fighting spirit. In their minds, this was a requirement of all preachers on
the home front. At a Methodist Episcopal Conference in Detroit, Bishop
Theodore Henderson stated, "If there is any preacher…who doesn't see his way
clear to espouse the cause of the Allies, if we can't regenerate him, we will
eliminate him, and then turn him over to the Department of Justice."51
Congregationalist theologian Lyman Abbott also exemplified this church
militancy, "in this hour every Christian Church should be a recruiting office for
the Kingdom of God…The Christian Church and the Christian ministry should
hear the voice of the Master saying, 'I have come not to send peace, but a
48
John Schaller, "Religious Freedom Endangered II," Northwestern Lutheran 6:12 (15 June 1919),
92-93;
49
L. G. Broughton, Is Preparedness for War Unchristian? (New York: Hoddler and Stroughton,
1916), 169.
50
W.T. Manning, The Present Crisis in the Nation's Life (Pamphlet), emphasis is mine.
51
Ray H. Abrams, Preachers Present Arms (Scottsdale, PA: Herald Press, 1969), 193.
The Divide
13
sword.'"52 Preachers across the country happily accepted sermon texts and
outlines from the federal government. Sermons even fell into the following
rhetoric:
It is God who has summoned us to this war. It is his war we are fighting….This conflict is
indeed a crusade. The greatest in history–the holiest. It is in the profoundest and truest
sense a Holy War…Yes, it is Christ, the King of Righteousness, who calls us to grapple in
53
deadly strife with this unholy and blasphemous power.
To be fair, this sentiment was not universal; some evangelical churches
advocated peace or demurred from transforming the pulpit into a patriotic
loudspeaker. A few religious groups, such as the Mennonites, attempted to
conscientiously abstain from the war because of their doctrine of pacifism.
These defectors also received the punishment due to them for their defiance.
Likewise, the Wisconsin Synod exhibited behavior consistent with its
highly liturgical nature. Unlike the evangelicals, Lutheranism believed that force,
such as laws and wars, cannot make people holy–only the gospel has that
power. Therefore, the prospect of going to war to forcefully uplift Europe
seemed very quixotic. Furthermore, while evangelicals could easily adapt their
informal worship practices to preach patriotic themes and solicit war
contributions, the Wisconsin Synod ministers would need to break the Lutheran
church liturgical calendar to insert the government mandated texts and themes,
which often conflicted with the synod's doctrine in the first place. Cooperation
with government endeavors also caused trepidation over breaking the synod's
beloved "dividing wall between church and state."54 The synod labeled this
development a "dangerous precedent with far reaching consequences…if
officials were justified in this case to make such demands upon the churches
according to their personal judgment, just where is the limit to this alleged
privilege?"55
This fact did not temper the charges against the synod for being
unpatriotic, nor did it moderate the persecution of both its pastors and
members. Seminary professor August Pieper summarized the situation well:
"the sectarian (evangelical) churches of America cannot understand our
Lutheran Church…which wants to preach nothing but the Gospel…[and] refuse
as churches to place the holy ministry and the church officers in the service of
52
Liberty Loan Committee, Second Federal Reserve District, "Material for Clergy in Third Liberty
Loan," 1918.
53
R.H. McKim, For God and Country (New York: E.P. Dutton & Company, 1918), 116-117.
54
John Brenner, "Liberty Church," Northwestern Lutheran 6:11 (1 June 1919), 82-83.
55
John Schaller, "Religious Freedom Endangered," Northwestern Lutheran 6:11 (1 June 1919), 8688.
The War to End all Germans
14
the government to recruit men, sell bonds, and the like." In some cases, "in the
superheated atmosphere…and with a keen sense of being coerced," some synod
churches "almost unjustifiably submitted under duress and, lending the
machinery of the church to the government, rendered whatever aid they could
with good conscience."56
As a religious community keen to preserve its distinct nature against
integration, the prospect of a nationwide war effort could only produce
difficulties. Wars require incorporation and solidarity to achieve victory. Hence,
"national duty" would require many in the church to step outside its protective
environment. The war "emergency" also brought about reinvigorated attacks
against the synod's parochial schools and German-language church services,
both of which were condemned as the enemies of "American unity." The worst
by-product of the war, in the synod's opinion, was the attempt to create a
religious cohesion for the war effort. Historian Ray Abrams put it this way,
"What the churches had failed to accomplish in the furtherance of church unity
in half a century of virtual peace came about almost overnight in a united effort
to help kill the Germans and thereby promote the best interests of the kingdom
of God."57 This became apparent in the government controlled religious care of
the soldiers, who were often given the generic choice of "Protestant, Catholic,
or Jewish" for their ministers. Later in the war it even developed into common
appeals for a national church–a postmillennial and ecumenical dream. Joint
patriotic worship activities prevailed throughout the war years, and Wisconsin
56
August Pieper, "The True Reconstruction of the Church," Theologische Quartalschrift 62 (1965),
193.
57
Abrams, 80. A very popular book, Religion and the War, published in 1918, exemplifies the
religious atmosphere of the time. After degrading the "narrow minded" and "dogmatic" churches
who were a stumbling block to "Christian Unity" during the war, author Williston Walker laid the
groundwork for which all Christian churches should unite after the war: "All of these elements–
the intellectual, the pietistic, the aesthetic or symbolical–have a rightful place in religious life, but
they are all subordinate, to the one great dominating element, the moral. And it is because of a
failure to adequately recognize and practice this element that so many supposedly Christian
nations are today in deadly conflict. All of them persist in their theological beliefs; all of them
persist in pietistic communion; all of them persist in rite and ceremony; but some of them at least
fail even to approximate the exemplification of their fundamental and ethical requirements of
their faith. Their theology, their pietism, their worship,–their religion,–have not been moralized;
and unless we are willing to make, both in belief and practice, the religious basis of wordorganization truly ethical, we will fall as lamentably in the future as we have in the past."
Emphasis is mine. Therefore, whenever the synod said they rejected ecumenicism, it was because
they understood what ecumenicism meant: a subordination of salvation " by grace through faith
alone" to a foremost emphasis on "moralizing" and "Christian living" to "earn" salvation.
The Divide
15
Synod Lutherans were called "scabs" when they declined to participate.58
"That's their thing," claimed the Gemeindeblatt, "Lutherans may not, without
denying our faith, make common religious cause with them."59
Critics might argue, as many did, that the German Lutherans exploited
their tenets as a safe cover for their pro-German leanings. While this argument
should not be ignored, it oversimplifies the circumstances and makes religious
conviction a moot point. The best way to judge the consistency of the synod is
to examine their actions in comparable situations, but without the prospect of
war with Germany. For one, the Spanish-American War of 1898 provides this
opportunity. In an article posted on 15 July 1898, the Gemeindeblatt discussed
the decision of the United States to declare war. "Whether this was wise is
something we have not to judge," claimed the Gemeindeblatt, "Indeed we
cannot, without having inspected the relevant documents."60 This is hardly the
case of a church playing the role of head cheerleader. Later in the war, it
claimed, "War is a disaster, every war for every nation, even if its fleet and army
rushes to victory, war is an evil…People in war believe they are free from all the
commandments of God." It then gave sympathy to the "terrible losses suffered
by the enemy…to the thousands who are wounded and maimed….Last week in
the besieged city by our troops 15,000 old people, men, women, and children
have fled and have saved nothing but their bare lives." Yet, the Gemeindeblatt
claimed Christians should "be still and know that he is God," and that the
government does have the authority to declare war.61 Had this article been
published during the First World War, the writer would most likely have been
indicted under the Espionage or Sedition Act. Another example goes back all the
way to 1868, when the Wisconsin Synod officially broke ties with the German
state churches. With rhetoric sounding plainly similar to that in 1917-1918, the
synod described these bodies as "a misuse of the power of the state over the
church," whereby "consciences were enslaved and the church robbed of its
58
"Sectarian 'Tolerance,'" The Northwestern Lutheran 4:17 (7 September 1917), 131.
"YMCA," Gemeindeblatt 52:12 (15 June 1917), 182.
60
"Kriegs und Sieges Predigt," Gemeindeblatt 33:14 (15 July 1898), 105.
61
"Kriegs und Friedenspredigt," Gemeindeblatt 33:20 (15 October 1898), 153. Another aspect of
consistency with this war was the service to the soldiers. Like in World War I, the sole Wisconsin
Synod pastor who served the soldiers, F.J. Eppling, worked separate from the government issued
chaplains and held his own religious services. He even "feared the regimental chaplains want to
give me trouble." At the request of the soldiers which he served, Eppling preached in German.
One point of difference, however, is that the synod did not seem to have qualms receiving
government assistance. Eppling rode down with the governor of Wisconsin seemingly free of
passage.
59
The War to End all Germans
16
possessions…Therefore not only a manufactured doctrinal union, but also an
enforced organizational union are to be categorized as definitely worthy of
condemnation." 62 That these words referred to churches in Germany makes this
statement even more convincing.
At a time when civil liberties were rarely put into practice, and instead
served simply as a catchphrase, Wisconsin Synod Lutherans received a rude
awakening for their wartime dissent and their slow–or nonexistent–assimilation
into American culture. Their story is mostly told through the words of
detractors, investigators, and other government officials who left extensive
records of their thoughts and activities concerning the German Lutherans.
Throughout the struggle, the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans espoused their own
version of patriotism, which differed from that imposed upon them. The
narrative originates from this divergence.
62
Edward C. Fredrich, The Wisconsin Synod Lutherans: A History of the Single Synod, Federation,
and Merger (Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Publishing House, 1992), 35.
Chapter 1
Neutrality Betrayed
The outbreak of war in Europe in 1914 surprised few of those who
followed European affairs. Conflicts over colonies and an escalation in military
preparations created an air of tension which finally detonated after the
assassination of the Archduke of Austria. The unprecedented amplification and
carnage of the conflict, however, both shocked and horrified onlookers. The
Battle of the Marne, which in 1914 halted Germany's progress into France,
resulted in half a million casualties. At the very beginning, the American people
shuddered at the thought of participation and resolved to steer clear of the
conflict.
In the interconnected world of 1914, however, such non-intervention
was difficult to put into practice. The predominant European ethnicity of
Americans stirred emotions and often aligned individuals with one side in the
struggle, more often with the Allied Powers. Initial German successes in the war
were also counterproductive in this way, as an invasion of Belgium and France
allowed partisans for the Allies to pin Germany as the aggressor. The emerging
economic giant of America also made it a possible balance of power in the
struggle for supplies. The British, with a superior fleet, blockaded all merchant
access to German ports in an attempt to wear down Germany in a war of
attrition. The Germans responded by using the Unterseeboot to disrupt trade
routes to the Allies. Of the two, the latter strategy was considered much less
humane and antagonized Americans to a greater extent. As months went by,
the war was increasingly viewed as less of a commercial rivalry than a struggle
between the democracy of the Allies and autocracy of the Central Powers. The
beloved neutrality at the beginning of the war began to slip away. By the fall of
1915, a nationwide survey of clergymen showed that over eighty percent
The War to End all Germans
18
preached preparedness for war.1 Wisconsin Synod Lutherans, however,
remained steadfast in their favor of neutrality. Their anguish, while it slowly
dissipated, played a key role in drawing the lines on the home front.
II. Distant Guns Felt at Home
The Wisconsin Synod (WELS) never believed humankind could
overcome its wretchedness through civilization. The outbreak of a brutal war in
what were deemed the most civilized societies only confirmed their belief in the
total depravity of human nature. Wisconsin Synod pastor Carl Buenger declared
peace under the auspices of civilization to be as fragile as a "Seifenblase" (soap
bubble), because "all enlightenment and civilization by no means improves the
corrupt heart of man from sin."2 All culture is but a thin veneer, claimed WELS
minister Hans K. Moussa, as he described the "pained surprise of those who
thought modern civilization was so far advanced that war was outgrown."3
These and other publications point to an unfavorable sentiment toward the
European War from its beginning. Consequently, none of the synod publications
promoted Germany's righteous cause in the war. Instead, they criticized all
claims that God favored either nation as "the typical heathen idea of a tribal
God."4 Writers claimed the war started for economic reasons, as Moussa stated,
"but whenever these very same [business] interests would not benefit by the
avoidance, there will be war." As the American neutrality became more fragile,
this rhetoric against business interests would only increase.
While the synod may not have parroted Germany's cause in the war,
Wisconsin Synod Lutherans naturally felt partiality to their former homeland.
This sentiment was felt by the older generation especially, since most of this
generation either hailed from Germany or still had relatives living there. For
instance, Pastor F. Mueller of the Missouri Synod, the sister synod of the WELS,
had 15 cousins in the German army.5 A myriad of relief efforts attempted to
alleviate the hardship and suffering felt in Germany. While Hans K. Moussa
1
E. Hershey Sneath, Religion and the War (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1918), 82-83.
Several other surveys during this time show similar patterns. Another vote in Brooklyn of over
twenty denominations tabulated 157 in favor of preparedness while only 14 opposed. A poll of
Presbyterian ministers by Chicago's The Continent in 1915 found "an overwhelming majority"
favoring preparedness.
2
C. Bünger, "Europas Völkerkrieg," Gemeindeblatt 49:19 (1 Oct 1914), 295.
3
Hans K. Moussa, "Lessons of the War," Northwestern Lutheran 1:17 (7 September 1914), 137.
4
Hans K. Moussa, "The Fifty-fifth Psalm," Northwestern Lutheran 2:7 (7 April 1915), 50-51.
5
A.E. Farland Report, 2 October 1918, OG 241115.
Neutrality Betrayed
19
claimed that sympathy was felt for all war victims, including the piteous
"appeals…of Belgium, Serbia, and Northern France,"6 German Lutheran
pocketbooks did not match the rhetoric. Aadele Falde, the editor of "College
Notes" at the Wisconsin Synod's Dr. Martin Luther College in New Ulm,
Minnesota, summarized more candidly the feelings of Wisconsin Synod
Lutherans:
Societies all over the United States are formed and are collecting for a good cause. An
Englishman will collect for the Red Cross in England. A Frenchman for the Red Cross in
France. We, being Germans, would materially help the Germans…We were visited by
two young ladies from Mankato, selling rings made of iron to aid the Red Cross in
Austria-Hungary and Germany…They were sold at the price of a dollar apiece, a very
7
small amount considering the good that a dollar will do. Why not all buy a ring?"
German Lutherans also partook in event benefits for the Red Cross in Germany
and Austria. The Dr. Martin Luther College choirs participated in such an event
at the New Ulm Turner Hall on 19 October 1914. Other organizations received
assistance from the synod. Congregations from Milwaukee, for example,
created a special collection to help war-weary members of the Lutheran Free
Church in Germany, which was a separate entity from the German state
churches and affiliated with the synod.8
Within the first week of the war, the British cut the transatlantic cable
to the United States somewhere east of the Azores. This maneuver blocked
German sources of war news from reaching the United States. Hence, most
items published in the American press reflected the heavy editing of Allied
censorship. This caused the German American population to turn to other
1.1: Dr. Martin Luther College, 1917
6
Hans K. Moussa, "Helping the War Victims," Northwestern Lutheran 3:16 (21 August 1916), 122.
DMLC Messenger (December 1914 and March 1915), found in Morton Schroeder, "Adolph
Ackermann, Chauvinism, and Free Speech," WELS Historical Institute Journal 2 (1984), 10-19.
8
Quarterly Meeting Minutes of Grace Lutheran, Milwaukee, WI, 12 October 1914.
7
The War to End all Germans
20
sources for war news. Travelling speakers from Germany found receptive
audiences in Wisconsin Synod circles. Dr. Eugene Kühnemann, a celebrated
German scholar, gave presentations for WELS congregations concerning the
conditions of East Prussia–the former homeland for many WELS Lutherans–
which was invaded by Russia in August and September 1914. "His enthusiasm is
contagious," wrote Rev. Hans K. Moussa.9 Elsewhere, a Mr. Hirsch from
Konstanz, Germany visited Grace Lutheran in Milwaukee and held an
"interesting meeting about the need of those who suffer" in the school
auditorium on 6 April 1915.10
This thirst for war news without the Allied bias also spurred a revival in
the German language press, which either reinterpreted Allied news sources or
received reports from correspondents. The Gemeindeblatt twice reposted
dispatches from the German Kaiser, which were unavailable in the English
language press, and painted a better situation for Germany than otherwise
reported.11 Secular newspapers like the Minneapolis Freie Presse and
Milwaukee's Germania Herald also experienced a revival in readership, and
papers like these became the only trusted source of war-related news for many
German Lutherans. The most famous, or infamous, of the proponents for
Germany was an English language weekly called The Fatherland, edited by
George Sylvester Viereck. The Fatherland educated Americans on the virtues of
the German position and attempted to expose the conspiracy to draw America
into the war. Started in August 1914, more than 100,000 copies were in
circulation by October.12 Viereck gave his newspaper free to ministers,
particularly Lutheran ministers, hoping these influential individuals would relay
its sentiments to others. Many synod ministers likely subscribed to these various
papers. A WELS congregation in Marshall, Wisconsin, read the Milwaukee
Germania Herald "almost exclusively," reported a federal agent. Rev. Hans
Eggert from Bay City, Michigan won a wardrobe from Viereck's Weekly, the new
name for The Fatherland starting in 1917.13 The only price was attention from
the Justice Department, since as a reader of Viereck's Weekly he became
suspected of pro-German leanings. Four other WELS ministers–Martin Sauer,
9
Hans K. Moussa, "Helping the War Victims," Northwestern Lutheran 3:16 (21 August 1916), 122.
Quarterly Meeting Minutes of Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI, 6 April 1915.
11
"Unseres Kaisers erste Siegesdepesche," Gemeindeblatt 50:5 (1 March 1915), 71;
"Neujahrsbotschaft des Deutschen Kaisers," Gemeindeblatt 50:7 (1 April 1915), 107.
12
U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, Hearings on Brewing and Liquor Interests
and German and Bolshevik Propaganda, 66th Cong., 1st sess., 1919, p. 1420; Wm. S. Fitch Report,
28 April 1917, OG 13652.
13
Viereck's Weekly, 31 Oct 1917, Found in OG 12294, Page 25.
10
Neutrality Betrayed
21
Paul Budach, John Glaeser and Henry Viestens–later came under investigation
because they subscribed to the Milwaukee Free Press before the war.14 Thanks
to these investigations, however, evidence exists of their readership of these
papers.
The war in Europe continually made its presence felt in the minds of
Wisconsin Synod Lutherans. Military companies became a popular activity for
students at the two WELS colleges. Dr. Martin Luther College (DMLC) drilled
every Tuesday and Thursday, and around 100 students joined the company. The
company thought highly of itself; said a member, "Judging from the material
that has been given us this year, we may expect to reach a standard which will
put us on the level with any other organization of the kind."15 A military band
also organized at DMLC during the neutrality period. At Northwestern, the 150
boys who drilled caught the attention of local Congregational pastor N.C.
Daniell, who pleaded to authorities to confiscate the students' rifles. As a justice
department agent investigated the situation, Professor J.H. Ott, the librarian at
Northwestern, kindly reminded the visitor that according to the Constitution the
government has no authority to depose of their rifles.16 This tension over
Northwestern's rifles went much deeper than their constitutionality. As
steadfast partisans for peace and neutrality, Wisconsin Synod Lutherans bitterly
sparred with those who by 1917 sounded the drums of war. As the neutrality
became more fragile, the stakes became higher and the feud between the war
and peace parties became more passionate.
III. Partisans for Peace
Although a strong neutrality sentiment pervaded the United States early
in the war, the neutrality position was increasingly on the defensive. Some, like
former President Theodore Roosevelt, needed no convincing, as he told
reporters from the beginning he would "declare war on Germany tomorrow."17
Numerous defense leagues created a physical presence for war agitation. The
most prominent was the National Security League, with a membership over
100,000, which drilled regularly and published names of "un-American"
14
Wm. S. Fitch Report, "Milwaukee Free Press," 23 March 1917, OG 20117.
DMLC Messenger (March 1914, October 1915, and September 1916) found in Morton
Schroeder, 11.
16
Wm. H. Steiner Report, 3 April 1917, OG 1396; Wm. H. Steiner Report, "Dr. Ludwig Bleek, And
Rifles at German Lutheran College," 27 April 1917, OG 1396.
17
French Strother, Fighting Germany's Spies (Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, 1918),
45.
15
The War to End all Germans
22
representatives who did not vote for defensive measures. A splinter group from
the Security League, the American Defense Society, with Theodore Roosevelt as
president, was far more vigorous in war preparation. Furthermore, a heavy
majority of American newspapers favored the Allies and highlighted German
atrocities in acts of war or on the high seas. In opposition, WELS critics felt the
neutrality was being undermined by the press' non-neutral nature. They
attacked the "subsidized press" for provoking the American citizenry and then
either minimized Germany's war crimes or defended them. Synod members
consistently defended the war's original perception as a commercial war, rather
than the struggle between the darkness of autocracy and the light of
democracy. Until the bitter end, most German Lutherans were baffled and
frustrated at the credulous American citizens who refused to heed their
admonitions and were so easily swayed by propaganda.
The first major dispute came over Germany's treatment of neutral
Belgium. Germany's Schlieffen Plan called for the German army to pass through
Belgium as a shortcut to Paris. When Belgium refused the German army
passage, Germany invaded and occupied Belgium to open the route. Allied
newspapers seized this opportunity to brand Germany with barbarism. Like
most occupation armies, German
soldiers were guilty of a wide array of
abuse and maltreatment of the native
population. However, sensationalized
reports surfaced of German soldiers
tearing children from mothers' arms and
murdering them in cold blood, among
other unspeakable tragedies. Germany's
alleged treatment of Belgium firmly
convinced many Americans to support
1.3: Raemaker: Kultur in Cartoons
the Allied cause. In response, German
Lutherans accused the press of misrepresenting the situation in Europe for
propaganda purposes. The Gemeindeblatt questioned the reports of "atrocities
so hair-raising they are difficult to believe" and noted, "very few proper
witnesses attested to these."18 It accused the press of preying on the ignorance
of the people. In another article, it shared correspondence with the editor of a
Belgian newspaper who claimed he "traversed [Belgium] by length and breadth,
but of starving women and children, I've never seen anything." While French
18
"Belgien," Gemeindeblatt 50:3 (1 Feb 1915), 41.
Neutrality Betrayed
23
and English papers illustrated a severe famine in Belgium, this correspondent
contrarily stated, "I've eaten in small towns and villages, always very good and
extremely cheap."19
In an article titled "Belgien und der Kongostaat," Rev. Walter Hoenecke
attempted to expose the not so blameless character of "innocent Belgium."
Inside, he described the atrocities of King Leopold, the father of current Belgian
King Albert, as "The vast natural resources of [Congo] have been exploited
without regard for the population, forcing the inhabitants to slavery services
and slaughtered en masse, often under cruel tortures." How terribly they
treated the native population was "evident from the fact that the population
since 1885 has fallen from 18 million to 4 million, but for Belgium it has earned
billions of francs." Once again the English language press came under attack,
noting that English language papers "overflowed with indignation over the
Belgian Congo atrocities" until they needed the friendship of the Belgians, "then
of course they were silent."20 The Belgium situation received such a response
from Wisconsin Synod writers because they understood how vital an issue it
was for Allied propaganda. Indeed, when war eventually arrived, American
soldiers were continually inspired by stories of Germany's oppression of
innocent Belgium.
The eventual cause of American entry into the war, neutral shipping
rights, received by far the most attention from the Wisconsin Synod. Both sides
violated United States shipping rights in the war. Great Britain used its superior
fleet to blockade all maritime trade to the Central Powers, from war supplies to
foodstuffs. Germany, having the inferior fleet, chose to use its Unterseeboot, or
submarine, to equalize the war of supplies. The nature of submarine warfare,
however, repulsed many Americans, because submarines often killed without
warning. Since a visible presence of a blockading fleet was not present in the
Allied trade routes, United States merchants and industrialists were drawn to
the profitable prospects of supplying a nation at war. These divergent interests
naturally lead to complications. Germany warned all vessels trading with its
enemies that no weapons of war would be admitted within a specified zone
around England and France. This did little to stem the tide of trade, and
merchants found creative ways to mask their activities. A very popular method
was to use civilian vessels to transport supplies. In May 1915 a German
19
"Wie es nach sieben Monaten Krieg in Deutschland aussieht," Gemeindeblatt 50:12 (15 June
1915), 182.
20
"Belgien," Gemeindeblatt 50:3 (1 Feb 1915), 41; Walter Hönecke, "Belgien und der Kongostaat,"
Gemeindeblatt 50:5 (1 March 1915), 70.
The War to End all Germans
24
submarine suspected a civilian vessel, the Lusitania, of doing just that. It fired
upon and sunk the Lusitania. While the assumption was correct–the Lusitania
was carrying guns and ammunition–1,198 civilians died as a result, including 138
American citizens.21 The ensuing firestorm made Germany relax its submarine
warfare for a time. As war supplies continued to be shipped across the Atlantic,
neutral shipping would remain at the forefront of public discourse throughout
the neutrality period.
Many German Americans angered their fellow citizens by attempting to
justify the Lusitania's sinking. They pointed to the fact that the Lusitania put its
passengers in danger by carrying munitions, and that Germany had given ample
warning to all prospective passengers. A
popular cartoon circulated depicting a
German American telling himself after the
sinking, "Vell, ve varned 'em!"22 While the
Wisconsin Synod never officially defended
the Lusitania's sinking, it made reference to
it in a Northwestern Lutheran article, which
depicted
a
Methodist
Episcopal
Conference's resolution condemning "in
unsparing words the inhuman torpedoing
and unchristian sinking of the steel
The
article
steamship
Lusitania."23
highlighted six ministers who bolted the
meeting after fighting in vain to have the
resolution tabled. Most synod members,
being well read in the German language
press, likely adhered to what they read–
1.3: Life Magazine, 10 May 1915
that supplying a belligerent with weaponry
and ammunition was a virtual participation in war, and that Germany was
justified in sinking vessels which carried those munitions.
The most telling sign of the Wisconsin Synod's attitude towards the
Lusitania was their continued condemnation of "illicit" weaponry trade. They
believed profiteering from the European war to be immoral and non-neutral in
nature. Even before the Lusitania affair, the Gemeindeblatt posted an article
21
Louise Doswald-Beck, San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at
Sea (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 124.
22
Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 8 May 1915.
23
"Pro-German Clergymen Bolt Chicago Meeting," Northwestern Lutheran 2:10 (21 May 1915), 80.
Neutrality Betrayed
25
titled "The Sin of America." Inside, it described the "shame of hypocrisy and
idolatry of money" of those who enriched themselves from the killing in the
European war.24 The war supplies found their way strictly to Allied nations,
allowing the Allied powers to "continue the war of extermination against the
Germans." This was a flagrant breach of neutrality because "neutrality means
favoring neither party." Since the bullets they sold killed people with whom
America was not at war, the Gemeindeblatt called these profits "Blutgeld," or
"blood money." With powerful enemies on all sides, Germany "will with
American money and possessions be completely destroyed." At the Thirteenth
Biennial Convention of the Wisconsin Synod in September 1915, the delegates
unanimously adopted a resolution along similar lines:
The Joint Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan and other
states in session assembled at Saginaw, Michigan, unanimously declared it is not within
our providence as part of the Christian Church to decide the question whether or not
our government according to so-called international law is guilty or not, during the
present war, of partisanship in protecting and furthering the traffic in arms and
ammunition. But, whereas, the sufferance of said traffic in arms and ammunition is
virtually a participation in war, and also a gross transgression of the Divine
commandment, "Thou shalt not kill," we, bound in conscience by the eternal laws of
God, feel compelled to declare to our government that not only all traffickers in arms
and ammunition of this country are, but also our government is guilty of the blood shed
in this war. We solemnly disavow and repudiate such traffic and protest against it most
25
emphatically.
The convention then formally requested all synod members to pray without
ceasing, both in public services and privately, that "God on high may make the
war to cease and grant peace on earth again."
As the tide of mainstream opinion in the United States turned
overwhelmingly to the Allies, the Wisconsin Synod Lutherans remained firm in
their position. Nearly every act in the war turned into an opportunity for
dispute. When the ancient French convent of the Celestins was destroyed by
German bombardment, the English language press described the event as
further proof of the "Huns'" disregard for civilization. Instead, the Northwestern
Lutheran focused on the "scandal of permitting the building, which was classed
as an historic monument, to be used as a barrack, which contributed to its
destruction."26 Among the numerous civilian massacres committed throughout
the war, the Northwestern specifically focused on reports that Russia exiled to
24
"Die Sünde Americas," Gemeindeblatt 50:6 (15 March 1915), 86-87.
A.C. Haase, "Thirteenth Biennial Convention of the Joint Ev. Luth. Synod of Wisconsin,
Minnesota, Michigan, and Other States," Northwestern Lutheran 2:18 (21 September 1915), 142.
26
"Historic Convent Destroyed," Northwestern Lutheran 3:15 (7 August 1916), 120.
25
The War to End all Germans
26
Siberia all the Lutherans of German extraction within its empire, which would be
"nothing short of murder and robbery of the baldest sort." The maltreated
Lutherans were never mentioned by the English Language press, for "it might be
interpreted as undue sympathy for Germany.…It makes one's blood boil at the
injustice of it all."27 The silence of the English language press on issues like this
confirmed German Lutherans' belief that it was attempting to mislead the
American people into a war with Germany. To counter this, the Northwestern
Lutheran advertised a book in 1916 titled War Echoes, or Germany and Austria
in the Crisis. The book was priced at $1.25, and it received high praise from the
Northwestern:
We have not seen another publication on the great World's War that can compare with
this in thoroughness, comprehensiveness, and excellence. Every American not
conversant with the German language should read this book and have their eyes
opened on such questions as "The Causes of the War," "Why Belgium was not
Protected," "Reasons for Germany in the World War," "Reasons for Great Britain in the
World War," "Neutrality in the United States," and dozens of other questions answered
by…famous authorities, together with the most important official documents bearing on
28
the subject.
German Lutherans often chose to vote with their money when they
disapproved of the actions of their financial institutions. Many banks
throughout the neutrality period invested in Allied War Bonds, firstly to help the
Allied cause and secondly because it included a high return of investment. WELS
minister Otto Engel, like many German Lutherans, pulled his funds from these
misbehaving banks. He wrote to his friend, Rev. Hermann Zimmerman,
"Certainly I have taken gold out of deposit from the bank and advise others to
take the same course. It is also in order to occasionally have a little 'talk' with
the banker."29 In Milwaukee, such a furor was raised "against the sale of any
Anglo-French bonds that…not a single Milwaukee bank openly handled any
Anglo-French bonds."30 Many banks on the eastern seaboard, especially J.P.
Morgan banks, invested substantially in Allied bonds. Therefore, an Allied
victory would ensure that these investments would be paid in full. Thus the
German Lutheran rhetoric against Wall Street emerged because many of these
institutions understood that American involvement in the war would further
protect their investments.
27
"An Atrocity?" Northwestern Lutheran 3:17 (7 September 1916), 130-131.
"War Echoes, or Germany and Austria in the Crisis," Northwestern Lutheran 3:22 (15 November
1916), 174.
29
Otto Engel to Hermann Zimmerman, 17 September 1915, OG 5025.
30
U.S., Congress, Senate, Committee on Judiciary, Hearings on the National German-American
Alliance, 65th Cong., 2d sess., 1918, p. 115.
28
Neutrality Betrayed
27
This anti-bank rhetoric should not be strictly construed as opportunistic
of the German Lutherans, as many assumed. The Lutheran religion maintained a
streak of anti-bank sentiment ever since Martin Luther published his thoughts in
"A Treaty on Usury." While many protestant denominations had already given
up the battle against usury by Luther's time, many Catholics and Lutherans
theologically contested the practice well into the 19th century. C.F.W. Walther,
the most influential Lutheran in America and highly revered by the Wisconsin
and Missouri Synods, in 1869 put the taking of interest in the same category as
"theft, robbery, adultery, and idolatry" and claimed that "banks are nothing but
institutions of usury."31 This sentiment may have dimmed as the nature of
lending changed,32 but reverberations still existed prior to the war. This is
especially true for the western regions of the synod–Minnesota and the
Dakotas. In these states, the Nonpartisan League was a political force, and some
Lutherans were drawn to its anti-banking tenets. Furthermore, banks–especially
nationally prominent ones–stood as a natural obstacle to the Wisconsin Synod's
attempt to create a distinct society on American soil.
With a presidential election forthcoming in 1916, most understood its
significance on the future course of American participation in the war.
Dissatisfied with the current regime's policies, most German Lutherans favored
Republican challenger Charles Evans Hughes. A member of the Wisconsin
Democratic State Campaign Committee reported that Lutherans from
Sheboygan, Calumet, and Waupaca counties were especially active and "willing
to condemn Wilson."33 Nearly every German language newspaper endorsed
Hughes, so much so that the New York Times dubbed him the "German favorite
son." The Gemeindeblatt and Northwestern Lutheran did not endorse Hughes,
however, and instead warned that some in the church had dangerously
breached the political divide. John Brenner in the Northwestern Lutheran
admitted, "many of our Lutheran brethren have in these last years acted
31
C.F.W. Walther, Die Wucherfrage: Protokoll der Verbundlungen der deutschen evang. Luth.
Gemeinde U.A.C. zu St. Louis, Mo., uber dieste Frage nebst einigen Autzuegen aus den Schriften
von Theologen vor und nach den Reformation und andern dieselbe betruffenden Documenten (St.
Louis, Mo: August Wiebusch und Sohn, 1869), 32, 56.
32
The theological issue of usury became much more complicated after the emergence of the
market economy. During the early days of the Christian church, however, money was truly a
"barren" commodity, meaning that the borrower typically did not employ the money to invest,
but to subsist.
33
Otto LaBudde to Husting, 31 October 1915, Found in James J. Lorence, "Dynamite for the Brain:
The Growth and Decline of Socialism in Central and Lakeshore Wisconsin," Wisconsin Magazine of
History 66 (Summer 1983), 250-73.
The War to End all Germans
28
unwisely by their love for the land of their birth, or, we will admit, by the sense
of justice." While many of these individuals petitioned the government prefaced
as "American citizens," the fact remained that "the name of our church was
brought into connection with them and that the appearance was thus created
that the Lutheran church was now beginning to enter the field of politics."34
Pastors mistakenly believed their activities away from the church to protect
neutrality would have no bearing on their occupation in the pulpit. Rev. Hans
Moussa, however, cautioned the WELS pastor that his "office is not to be
stripped off and put on at his pleasure, like a garment."35 Brenner believed this
participation in political activity to be spiritually dangerous. He wrote, "Christ
says, 'My kingdom is not of this world,' thus teaching the separation of Church
and State….The Church cannot find a quicker method of self destruction than
political activity."
The synod had an ambiguous score according to its own criteria. When
it came to official church activity, however, the synod's pastors conducted
themselves far better than other church bodies in keeping politics out of the
pulpit. Synod pastors followed principle in late October 1916, when various
Milwaukee meetings formulated to encourage Republican voting among
religious organizations for the election. The Milwaukee Journal reported on the
meeting's resolutions, noting,
While clergymen of the more pietistic bodies–the Evangelical Synod, the Evangelical
Association, the German Reformed church, and a Methodist conference–affixed their
signatures, no pastor of either the Wisconsin or Missouri synods (the two most
numerous German Protestant church bodies in the state) would so violate the orthodox
36
principle of noninvolvement in partisan politics.
The synod members also generally avoided work with the National GermanAmerican Alliance, and frustrated their otherwise successful efforts to court
religious groups to form a solid bloc of German Americans to fight for neutrality.
Like all unifying efforts, members of the Wisconsin synod generally showed
disdain for the organization. It then admonished other religious bodies, both
pro-war and against, for "prostitution of our one and only duty as preachers and
spreaders of the Gospel."37 The Northwestern Lutheran even highlighted
34
John Brenner, "Urges Lutherans to Political Activity," Northwestern Lutheran 3:18 (21
September 1916), 139.
35
Hans K. Moussa, "Private Affairs of the Pastor," Northwestern Lutheran 2:16 (21 August 1915),
126.
36
Milwaukee Journal, 24 October 1916, emphasis is mine.
37
Hans K. Moussa, "The Political Campaign," Northwestern Lutheran 1:22 (21 November 1914),
177.
Neutrality Betrayed
29
Milwaukee clergyman Paul B. Jenkins's sermon on the subject of preparedness,
and claimed that by "entering the arena of political controversy he, by pulpit
utterances, courts contradiction: how will he fare when it suits his pleasure to
deliver the message entrusted to him by the Master?"38
However, many ministers naively believed that their private indignation
over the breach of neutrality could be separated from their public proclamation
as pastors in the pulpit. These auxiliary activities of ministers and other workers
during the neutrality period came back to haunt many after the declaration of
war. For these individuals, it would have been prudent to heed the
admonisher's warning in the Northwestern Lutheran. Since they were in a
position of leadership in their communities, however, many felt compelled to
work for the interests of their people. Many preachers rebuked various political
figures for their activities and decisions that were contrary to the interests of
German Americans. After an election speech by President Wilson which
attacked all "hyphenated" Americans, Rev. Henry Boettcher of Gibbon,
Minnesota fired a letter to the Democratic National Committee:
If ever I have been sorry for a deed, it is that I helped elect Wilson [in 1912]. …I have
been as good an American as ever any of the Wilsons were. Yea a better American,
because none of my ancestors raised a hand against the Stars and Stripes, like Wilsons
ancestors….And to be called an undesirable citizen by a man, who's [sic] only boast is,
that he is a fine breed Englishman, who feels at home in English surroundings, is indeed
strong! …He deliberately insulted us! He knew better, he knew that he wronged us, but
purposely he did do it, because he hated us, since we had not his English blood in our
39
veins.
President Wilson and Minnesota Congressman Franklin Ellsworth received
another letter from Professor Ackermann of Doctor Martin Luther College. After
expressing the anti-war sentiment of his community, he chastised their
decisions during the neutrality period: "Americans were warned to keep out of
the danger zone in Mexico, why not warned to stay off ammunition ships? Wall
street and ammunition manufacturers is [sic] not the voice of the people."40
While their English grammar may have been sloppy, these religious leaders may
have possessed the strongest English skills available in their communities to
petition the government.
While none of the Wisconsin Synod pastors were able to hold an
audience with any congressional committees, a member of the Synodical
38
"Politics and the Pulpit." Northwestern Lutheran 3:5 (7 March 1916), 34.
Rev. Henry Boettcher to the Democratic National Committee, 22 October 1916, found in Nathan
Meyer, "The Presidential Election of 1916 in the Middle West" (Ph.D. diss., Princeton University,
1966), 250.
40
Brown County Journal, 17 February 1917.
39
The War to End all Germans
30
Conference, Professor Frederick Bente of the Missouri Synod's Concordia
Seminary, presented at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee concerning the
prohibition of exportation of munitions of war. Bente, like many WELS
ministers, believed his personal activities could stay separate from his religious
occupation. He told the committee, "I represent here strictly by delegation the
American Neutrality League. I am not delegated exactly by Concordia Seminary
nor by the synod, although I know that practically every Lutheran in the country
would identify himself with the stand which we take on this question."41 The
Neutrality League took a stand against "the sale of munitions to belligerents in
any war which the United States is not a party." In his speech, Bente attacked
the duplicity of the nation in publicly proclaiming neutrality and praying for
peace while furnishing weapons to one of the warring parties. Despite Bente's
claim to be solely representing the American Neutrality League, Senator Henry
Cabot Lodge's letter to Theodore Roosevelt shows the difficulty of disconnecting
from one's religious profession:
The German-American propaganda has become pretty bad. We had them before the
Foreign Relations Committee the other day on the question of prohibiting the export of
war munitions, when a man from the Lutheran Seminary in St. Louis, named Bente,
addressed us. He had been born and brought up in Germany…[and] had an accent so
strong that you could tumble over it, and he proceeded to lecture us on Americanism,
patriotism, what true Americanism was, and what the opinions of George Washington
42
were…They are now engaged in telling us how loyal they are to the United States.
Perhaps no Wisconsin Synod member was busier during the neutrality
period than Rev. Otto Engel of Norwalk, Wisconsin. A young man–31 years old
in 1916–he was nonetheless very influential in his congregation and the town of
Norwalk. Engel held personal acquaintances with many Germans and Austrians,
including the mayor of Vienna, and he received much of his war news from his
correspondence with them.43 He deplored the influence of British propaganda
on the American citizenry, and created the American Liberty League to
counteract it. Engel served as president of this league, which included the
following in its constitution:
Believing that the British propaganda…is bending every effort to speed the day of an
Anglo-American entente, the Liberty League has been organized with the object of
41
United States Senate, Committee on Foreign Relations, Prohibition of Exportation of Munitions
of War, 3 February 1915, State Department Records, National Archives, Group 59, Roll 0151.
42
Henry Cabot Lodge to Theodore Roosevelt, 22 February 1915, found in Selections from the
Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884-1914 (New York, 1925), II,
457.
43
Wm. S. Fitch Report, 10 April 1917, OG 5025; Marlborough Churchill, "Memorandum: Rev. Otto
Engel," 10 August 1918, OG 5025; Wm. H. Steiner Report, 4 October 1918, OG 5025.
Neutrality Betrayed
31
guarding our American rights against pro-ally influences….We must enlighten our
American people on what is behind this war, thus frustrating the scheme of forcing us
into an alliance with England. This effort is patriotic, for we are striving to develop a
genuine American national type, while the Tories insist that we be and remain merely a
44
British off-shoot.
The American Liberty League sent "thousands of letters to Lutherans
and also Wisconsin members of Congress."45 Engel arranged many writers to
pen circulars arguing for strict neutrality to be distributed all over the country.
As the league gained influence and the neutrality situation worsened, Engel
began reaching out to Congressmen across the United States. After receiving a
circular from one of his best writers, Engel assured him this message would
reach important decision makers:
Dear Friend: I return to you the list of Secretaries of the 65th Congress, after I have
made a copy of those People's Representatives under consideration, I will mail 2000
letters containing your pamphlet as soon as the printed matter has come into my
possession. The 2000 stamped envelopes are being addressed now: Professors, Mayors,
46
Pastors, Teachers, Doctors, etc.
These pamphlets from the American Liberty League included "The Lusitania
Case," "Neutrality and Public Opinion," and "Strict Accountability, or the
Underlying Intention." Through his work with the
American Liberty League, Engel became a prominent
figure for peace. Wisconsin Lutherans often sent their
petitions to the government through him, hoping
through his influence to be heard. Despite his
successes, his actions caused concern among members
of the synod. Ernest von Briesen, a prominent lawyer
and leading member of the synod, "several times
called Engel's attention to his class of work." Von
Briesen wrote Engel a letter severely criticizing him for
1.4: Rev. Otto Engel
taking part in politics and asked him to "immediately
47
discontinue his activities in political matters." Engel neglected to heed these
warnings, however, and this decision cost him much agony after the declaration
of war.
44
Pamphlet of the American Liberty League, found in OG 5025, p. 17. Rev. Engel was a very wellinformed man. He subscribed to dozens of newspapers in the United States, Asia, and South
America. Those who knew him said he was always "reading or writing." He also contributed to
Juergen Neve's 1915 history of Lutherans in America. Neve inserted Engel's contributions relating
to the Wisconsin Synod verbatim.
45
Frank F. Wolfgram Report, 7 November 1918, OG 5025.
46
Otto Engel to Ernst Goerner, 27 March 1917, OG 5025.
47
Frank F. Wolfgram Report, 18 February 1919, OG 5025.
The War to End all Germans
32
Sometimes congregation members pressured their ministers to
represent them. At a quarterly meeting at Christ Lutheran Church in West
Salem, Wisconsin, Rev. Herman Zimmermann "was instructed to send a petition
to President Wilson and [La Follette], [Husting] and Esch" to reflect an anti-war
letter read in Congress.48 In West Salem's case, the anti-war position taken by
Lutherans caused conflict in the community. The same meeting
"discussed…several people from the English here in the village [who] have
insulted our Pastor, or even lied [about] him, in regard to the war. Those who
insulted the Pastor should, at least, take back what they have said." Pastor
Zimmerman appears to have weathered this storm, as indicated in a personal
letter from Otto Engel: "I congratulate you on the successful finish of the
slander affair. I am enclosing the newspaper clippings as per your request. That
is the way to go after the ultra-patriots, right from the start." 49 Because
Zimmerman and his church made enemies in the West Salem community, and
because of his association with Engel, he too would come under much
persecution after the declaration of war.
When the war in Europe erupted, Ludwig Bleek, a citizen of nobility in
Germany, was visiting London. When England did not allow him passage back to
his homeland, he and his wife moved to the United States. After spending some
time in New York, Bleek heard of a German American community in Watertown,
Wisconsin and decided to relocate there. Once in Watertown, he associated
himself with the city's intellectuals, especially the professors at the Wisconsin
Synod's Northwestern College. Bleek also brought a lot of baggage to
Watertown, in the form of government investigators. Since Bleek was a German
citizen, the government considered him to be a potential German spy or
saboteur.50
While visiting Watertown, the investigators considered the city "the
center of an intensely Pro-German, anti-administration movement."51 During
the Bleek investigation, officials came across his closest friend, President August
48
Quarterly Meeting Minutes of Christ Lutheran Church, West Salem, WI, 1 April 1917. Translated
by Prof. Arnold Koelpin, 20 July 2012. Zimmermann had been in contact with these
representatives and others prior to this. He received letters from Wisconsin Congressman John
Esch and Senator Robert La Follette in April 1916. Zimmermann also sent an editorial to the
Milwaukee Free Press in February 1915 which favored an arms-embargo. He was also one of the
many Lutheran subscribers to The Fatherland and later Viereck's Weekly, and held many
pamphlets from Engel's American Liberty League.
49
Otto Engel to Herman Zimmerman, 26 April 1917, OG 5025.
50
Chas. P. Tighe Report, "Neutrality Matter," 16 March 1916, OG 1167.
51
H.G. Clabuagh Report, 17 February 1916, OG 1167.
Neutrality Betrayed
33
Ernst of Northwestern College, a Wisconsin Synod school. The German
American Club of Watertown, which Ernst presided, also caught their attention.
This club functioned somewhat as a literary society; its official purpose was to
encourage the use of the German language. During the neutrality period,
however, it often held meetings which favored Germany. A minister of a local
Congregational church, N.C. Daniell, volunteered accounts to investigators
concerning four pro-German meetings previously
held by the club. One of these meetings was held on
1 August 1916 at the Hotel Waukesha in Watertown,
and included a special guest–a "Hindoo [sic] named
Krishua."52 The subject of his lecture was "British
Misrule in India." Krishua spoke strongly in favor of
Germany's "more lenient" system of colonization,
and ridiculed England's. He said they were prohibited
in India from hanging up pictures of Lincoln or
Washington on their walls. Daniell described Krishua
as an anarchist, and that "Professor Ernst of the
college is very pro-German and seems to be at the
head of the Watertown Germans, and Dr. Bleek is a
close confidential associate of his." Other speakers at
these meetings included Dr. Herman and Professor
1.5: Prof. August Ernst
Huth, other faculty members at Northwestern. When
Bleek was interviewed by government officials, they
tried to obtain information about these professors, but Bleek was very short
with his answers.53 The government's investigation of the German American
club at Watertown, while the country was still technically neutral, gave a
foretaste of the repression to come to German Lutherans once the United
States declared war.
When one attempts to comprehend the synod's position and rhetoric
regarding the European War, there are both simple and complex explanations.
Clearly, the thought of fighting a war against relatives and their former country
made war unthinkable in their minds. Additionally, a pride in German civilization
and culture–Kultur–led some to believe that the Germans, not the Allies, were
fighting on the side of progress. At the same time, the German Lutherans' antiwar rhetoric never drastically differed from their characteristics prior to the war,
52
Chas. P. Tighe Report, "Neutrality Matter," 16 March 1916, OG 1167;
Wm. S. Fitch Report, "Dr. Ludwig Bleek, and Rifles at German Lutheran College," 24 April 1917,
OG 1167.
53
The War to End all Germans
34
and often coincided with them. The sentiment against banks and speculators, as
previously discussed, had occupational and theological roots. Furthermore, with
an American religious environment divided into two distinct camps–reformer
and reformee–it is natural that the reformers–the evangelical organizations–
could be tempted to partake in the reconstruction of the globe. The quixotic
war objectives of "a war to end all wars," and "a war to save democracy,"
signified a reformer's dream. With God securely on the side of democracy,
peace advocates could even be labeled "unchristian." The Wisconsin Synod,
rather than viewing war as a medium to positive change, typically considered it
a corrupting mechanism. Recall the words of the Gemeindeblatt concerning the
War of 1898, "War is a disaster….People in war believe they are free from the
commandments of God." 54 After viewing the war's effect on the Christian
Church as a whole, the synod's beliefs were regrettably confirmed.
IV. On the Cusp of War
Despite the pleas for embargo, munitions continued to be exported to
the Allies in increasing amounts. In February 1917 Germany took a calculated
risk and resumed its unrestricted submarine warfare. Its generals understood
that this likely would bring the United States into the war, but it also gave them
a window to subdue a presumably ill-supplied Britain and France before the
United States could play a major role militarily.55 In response, churches across
the nation sounded their war drums. At the suggestion of the influential New
York Federation of Churches, for example, "War Sunday" was celebrated.
Literary Digest reported that "in flag-draped pulpits the pastors of New
York…sounded the call to arms."56 Wisconsin Synod Lutherans also understood
this likely would mean war with their former homeland. Even with war
appearing inevitable, they held fast to their convictions to the bitter end.
The Gemeindeblatt made it clear it had not moved an inch in its
sentiments. In its 15 April 1917 issue, the advertisement section included two
books which displayed partiality to Germany. The first book, The Journey of
Captain Paul König, featured a German submarine which evaded the British and
French blockade to transport foodstuffs to a starving German population. The
54
"Kriegs und Sieges Predigt," Gemeindeblatt 33:14 (15 July 1898), 105; "Kriegs und
Friedenspredigt," Gemeindeblatt 33:20 (15 October 1898), 153.
55
Joachim Schröder, Die U-Boote des Kaisers: Die Geschichte des deutschen U-Boot-Krieges gegen
Grossbritannien im ersten Weltkrieg (Lauf an der Pegnitz: Europaforum-Verlag, 2001), 205.
56
Literary Digest, 11 March 1917.
Neutrality Betrayed
35
Gemeindeblatt gave it high marks: "The book will be immediately classified
among the classics of sea literature."57 A second book, Ayesha, featured German
captain Hellmuth von Muecke's adventurous journey from the Keeling Islands to
Constantinople, which was good for a "mischievous laugh in the middle of battle
roar of the mighty struggle of nations."58 Since the United States declared war
on 6 April 1917 it would appear the Gemeindeblatt advertised books featuring
the enemy of the United States. However, the 15 April date marks the end of
the biweekly production period of the publication. This issue was likely printed a
few days before the declaration of war; the next issue chose the less
controversial route of advertising organ music.
A few days before the United States declared war, one thousand people
packed the armory in New Ulm, Minnesota for a peace meeting. This meeting
included speeches against the expected declaration, with two professors from
the Wisconsin Synod's Doctor Martin Luther College–A.F. Reim and Adolph
Ackermann–contributing. Ackermann made the most extended address of the
evening. He discussed the situation of the country from the standpoint of the
Constitution of the United States. "It has been said," Ackermann declared, "that
we have not the right to meet to protest against war, but this is not true. I stand
tonight on my Constitutional rights as an American citizen in addressing this
audience." After reading extracts from the Constitution to prove his point,
Ackermann gave the true meaning of treason, which friends of peace had been
charged so repeatedly in the past. "Treason," he said, "is the act of causing
war….Who then is guilty of treason if this country is plunged into war at this
time?" To Ackermann, the answer appeared plainly obvious, since the shout of
war was "being heard from all sides as jingoists were trying to force the nation
into war." These jingoists were supported by a "subsidized" press which created
war hysteria through slanted reporting. Throughout the public meeting,
Ackermann and the other speakers repeatedly pledged their loyalty and often
interjected patriotic songs and readings into their program. They considered
peace to be the patriotic position because it promoted the best interest of the
American people.59
At the peace meeting, it was decided to send a delegation from New
Ulm to Washington D.C. to attend a peace conference and to plead with
representatives for non-intervention. Among the three delegates selected was
57
"Die Fahrt der Deutschland," Gemeindeblatt 52:8 (15 April 1917), 128.
"Ayesha," Gemeindeblatt 52:8 (15 April 1917), 128.
59
"Patriotism Rings at Peace Meeting," New Ulm Review, 4 April 1917; Brown County Journal, 17
April 1917.
58
The War to End all Germans
36
F.H. Retzlaff, a highly involved WELS lay-member who regularly attended synod
conventions.60 When they arrived in Washington, they met an atmosphere in
the capitol city hostile to any peace movement and found all pro-war
Congressmen and Senators intractable to persuasion. Amid the disappointment,
the New Ulm Review singled out Minnesota Congressman Franklin Ellsworth of
the second district, "who admitted that he knew that probably 85 percent of his
constituents desired peace, but he hated the Kaiser and German autocracy and
that he could not conscientiously vote against the war resolution."61
During the New Ulm peace meeting, professor Ackermann suggested
that the war declaration be put to a popular referendum, believing the people
would not choose war if asked. New Ulm did just that, which resulted in a 23 to
1 ratio favoring peace.62 Other cities with high densities of German Lutherans
did likewise. In the city of Sheboygan, Wisconsin the ballots asked, "Shall the
United States enter the European War?" These ballots were distributed to the
churches. The local vote set for April 1-3 was interrupted before its completion,
but the incomplete result was announced as 4,112 "noes" and 17 "ayes."63
Manitowoc also held an unofficial referendum on the war, with 1,460 against
and only 15 for the war. A vote in Monroe, Wisconsin revealed 954 votes
against the war, while 95 voted in favor.64 In the uncertain times of April 1917
only one thing was clear, this war would be extremely unpopular with German
Lutherans and other communities. Government officials rightfully feared a noncohesive home front in the upcoming war. The vast quantity and size of the
government bureaucracies equipped to deal with home front issues make plain
this fear.
60
New Ulm Review, 4 April 1917.
New Ulm Review, 11 April 1917.
62
Results from Frederick Luebke, Bonds of Loyalty: German Americans and World War I (Dekalb,
IL, Northern Illinois University Press, 1974), 206;
63
Karen Falk, "Public Opinion in Wisconsin during World War I," Wisconsin Magazine of History 25
(June 1942), 395.
64
William Thomas, Jr., Unsafe for Democracy: World War I and the U.S. Justice Department's
Covert Campaign to Suppress Dissent (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), 21.
61
Chapter 2
The Machinery of Repression
After the United States declared war on Germany, a spy hysteria swept
the nation. Every fire, every explosion in a munitions plant, or ever
every accident on
land and sea was straightway credi
credited to the German spy system. If a cut in a
child's hand did not heal, then
n the Germans had placed germs in the bandages.
If a woman's headache did not dissipate with m
medicine, then the Germans had
"doped"" the particular pill or powder. Americans everywhere sifted through
their food to make sure there was no broken glass intermixed. The press was
the most important agent in spreading this fear of espionage. James R. Mock
recalled that "it was difficult to find a newspaper published in Ap
April 1917 that
did not have on every other page some reference to the malevolent work of the
enemy within."1 Many publishers looked to profit from this frenzy and produced
histories of German machinations on American soil. A small sampling of these
titles include,, Conquest and Kultur
Kultur, Face to Face with Kaiserism, Fighting
Germany's Spies, German Conspiracies in America
America, Germanism and the
American Crusade, Germanism from Within
Within, Pan-Germanism: it's Plans for
German Expansion in the World, The German American Plot, and The United
States and Pan-Germanism.. Some of these titles estimated that over 200,000
spies were "honeycombing the country," actively working for the German
government.2
2.1: Part of a full page advertisement in the Milwaukee Journal for the upcoming book, Face to
Face with Kaiserism, late 1917.
1
James R. Mock, Words that Won the War: the Committee of Public Information (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1939), 32.
2
George Creel, How We Advertised America (New York: Harper & Brothres, 1920), 168.
The War to End all Germans
38
Besides spies, Americans feared fifth column disloyalty. Not only were
there "two million men of German blood inside our borders, guaranteed by the
Kaiser to be loyal to Germany,"3 but it was generally believed that Germany paid
and encouraged radicals and pacifists to undermine wartime unity. Eventually,
the terms "German" and "radical," or "wide-eyed anarchist," became
synonymous in public opinion. The region which caused the most consternation
was the "polyglot" upper-Midwest, of which the German-speaking Wisconsin
Synod Lutherans were naturally considered one of the worst offenders.
Journalist and bureaucrat George Creel recalled the tenuous atmosphere of
April 1917:
Who does not remember the fears of "wholesale disloyalty" that shook us daily? There
were to be "revolutions" in Milwaukee, St. Louis, Cincinnati; armed uprisings here,
there, and everywhere; small armies herding thousands of rebellious enemy aliens into
4
huge internment camps; incendiarism, sabotage, explosions, murder, domestic riot.
Amid this hysteria, the federal and state governments instituted an
immense system of wartime bureaucracy to both inspire and police the home
front. Even before the declaration of war, representatives worked to create
legislation which would give teeth to these organizations. On 5 February 1917,
two months before war, Senator Lee Overman and Congressman Edwin Webb
introduced similar bills to "define and punish espionage." On April 2, after
President Wilson delivered his war message and war appeared imminent, Webb
introduced a more expansive espionage bill, which after nine weeks of debate
and amendment became the law of the land. The Espionage Act of 1917 made it
illegal to "willfully make or convey false reports or false statements with the
intent to interfere with the operation or success" of the United States.5 It also
punished all attempts to cause insubordination, disloyalty, mutiny, or refusal of
duty in the military or naval forces. The maximum penalty for breaking this law
was a fine of $10,000 or imprisonment of twenty years, or both.6
The Espionage Act originally included a "Card Amendment" which called
for press censorship, but this clause raised such a furor from all types of
publications that it was shelved. James R. Mock perceived the irony: "The press
3
Emerson Hough, The Web: The Authorized History of the American Protective League (Chicago:
The Reilly & Lee Co., 1919), 58.
4
Creel, 166.
5
Despite unwavering arguments by WELS critics that the Espionage Act infringed upon freedom of
expression, some historians argue that protection of speech was not time-honored, and did not
even need to be invoked until WWI. Paul Murphy, in his work World War I and the Origin of Civil
Liberties in the United States (1979) argued that freedom of speech as a civil liberty was born in
the repression of WWI.
6
Mock, 23-25.
Machinery of Repression
39
itself was the most important agency in spreading fear of espionage, and at the
same time was attempting to limit the provisions of the Espionage Bill."7 The
Northwestern Lutheran was one of those that voiced protest against the Card
Amendment, arguing on the grounds of religious liberty:
There can be no violation of American traditions which will not work harm and injustice
to the free development of the Church and the free exercise of its rights under the
constitutional guarantee of religious liberty. Chief among these rights is the guarantee
that it may teach its doctrines according to conviction, taking no regard of the wealth,
rank, or station of those whose actions and opinions it must condemn as contrary to the
8
Word of God.
One foreseeable abuse of this law was for the government to police Lutheran
objections to evangelical beliefs regarding "the Church, her nature, her
functions and purpose." These objections could be interpreted as a reflection on
the religious, even messianic, war aims proclaimed by president Wilson and
mainstream America. Indeed, when the opportunity presented itself, Wisconsin
Synod publications denounced all attempts to brand the First World War as a
religious conflict, causing irritation to propaganda organizations. While the
synod publications, the Gemeindeblatt and Northwestern Lutheran, escaped
suppression, other German language and socialist publications like the
Milwaukee Leader were censored and banned from the United States mails.
However, the Espionage Act was merciful in comparison to the 1918
Sedition Act. Agitation for a stricter statute came from law enforcement and
vigilantes who were frustrated by the difficulty of securing convictions for
disloyal Americans. The Sedition Act made unlawful any intentional writing,
speaking, or publication of "disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language
about the form of government…or the Constitution…or the military or naval
forces…or the flag…or the uniform of the army and navy of the United States."
This act clearly was meant to strike at the heart of "enemy propaganda," which
"is especially dangerous in any country governed by public opinion."9 Three
months after the act's passage, the Milwaukee Sentinel reported improved
results in the courtroom, writing, "21 war cases tried, not one acquittal has
resulted, the record shows."10 Armed with these statutes, the colossal home
front war machine could successfully root out all disloyalty.
7
Ibid, 32.
"Press Censorship and Religious Librerty," Northwestern Lutheran 4:13 (7 July 1917), 101; See
Chapter 3 for more detailed WELS criticism of wartime policies.
9
Hough, 57.
10
Milwaukee Sentinel, 9 August 1918.
8
The War to End all Germans
40
II. The Department of Justice and the American Protective League
In 1976, nearly sixty years after the First World War, the FBI released to
the National Archives partial wartime records of the Department of Justice and
the American Protective League. This delay might be attributed to a number of
factors. The suppression of socialist and communist groups was certainly a sore
subject during the Cold War. The Department may have wished to protect its
vigilante informants from retribution. Furthermore, it is likely that a delay
occurred because the Bureau recognized it miscalculated the situation on the
home front and investigated individuals it had no business looking into, while
breaching the rights and privacy of these same individuals. That this happened
in the formative years of the FBI further added to the discomfiture because
these investigations were the impetus for the substantial growth of the Bureau
in the first place. Had it not been for the reform of the FBI in the wake of
Watergate, COINTELPRO, and other affairs, these records may have never been
released.11
During the war, the Department of Justice was certainly not
embarrassed of its record. To them, the situation demanded drastic action.
Allegations of disloyalty flooded the Justice Department. Attorney General
Thomas W. Gregory noted, "every day hundreds of articles or passages from
newspapers, pamphlets, books…reports from private conversations, etc., have
been reported to officials of the department" with the hope for prosecution.12
The department received 1,000 accusations of disloyalty a day in May 1917, a
year later that number rose to 1,500. The department grew to meet these
requests. Gregory boasted after the war,
It would have been difficult for fifty persons to have met for any purpose, in any place,
from a church to a dance hall in any part of the United States, without one
representative of the government being present. I doubt if any country was ever so
13
thoroughly and intelligently policed in the history of the world.
George Creel, the head of the Committee on Public Information, the
government propaganda organ during the war, agreed: "Never was a country so
thoroughly contra-espionaged! Not a pin dropped in the home of any one with a
foreign name but that it rang like thunder in the inner ear of some listening
11
William Thomas, Jr., Unsafe for Democracy: World War I and the U.S. Justice Department's
Covert Campaign to Suppress Dissent (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2008), 8. The
Freedom of Information Act of 1974 pushed once sensitive documents like these into the public
domain.
12
Thomas, 32.
13
Gregory in a speech seven months after the war, found in Thomas, p.3.
Machinery of Repression
41
sleuth!"14 The department relied heavily on tips from a variety of sources, from
cooperative clergy to local officials. Its most useful tool, however, was a 250,000
strong volunteer home front army–the American Protective League.15
The American Protective League (APL) originated in March 1917, two
weeks before the war. Mr. A.M. Briggs from Chicago created a local branch and
took the idea to Washington, where he secured authority to establish it as a
volunteer auxiliary to the Department of Justice on 22 March 1917. Within a
month, the APL was organized in 280 cities and towns, which followed the
model of Chicago and answered to the Justice Department. In Wisconsin, for
example, the APL set up headquarters in 37 different cities and towns, which
quadrupled the per capita average.16 Michigan's 43 outlets tripled the per capita
average. The Wisconsin Synod's primary footprint–Wisconsin, Minnesota,
Michigan, Nebraska, and the Dakotas–claimed over 130 APL headquarters,
nearly half of the total. The speed of the APL's creation was spurned by "the
knowledge of how widespread and unscrupulous was the German spy system,
and how seriously it was affecting the temper and loyalty of aliens and
naturalized citizens." From the start, the league listed its two main functions.
The first was "to make prompt and reliable report of all disloyal or enemy
activities and of all infractions or evasions of the war code of the United States."
The second, "to make prompt and thorough investigation of all
matters…referred to it by the Department of Justice."17 Thereby, APL agents
worked undercover in close cooperation with the local agents of the
Department of Justice.
The profile of the APL volunteers, according to its account, were
successful men of affairs, "business and professional men….Men of proved
judgment, intelligence, initiative, and energy."18 Most of these volunteers
claimed to be either necessary to their families or past service age, but "still
were fired with patriotism and filled with wrath at the progress of German
propaganda and plotting in this country." A pent up feeling of being unable to
fight the enemy overseas led many to search for the enemy at home. Indeed,
14
Creel, 167.
Harold M. Hyman, To Try Men's Souls: Loyalty Tests in American History (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, 1960), 271-272.
16
Report: "Total Towns Organized to Date," 26 June 1917, OG 15093. This report listed the towns
in which the APL had headquarters. It also listed the APL executives and the Department of Justice
officials to which the APL members reported their findings.
17
French Strother, Fighting Germany's Spies (Toronto: McClelland, Goodchild & Stewart, 1918),
195-198.
18
Ibid, 197.
15
The War to End all Germans
42
league members believed that war waged between two secret organizations–
the German spy system versus the "loyal Americans under the unseen banner of
the American Protective League."19 As Emerson Hough, the official APL historian
described it, "It met that German Army as ours met it at Chateau-Thierry, and in
the Argonne….Like to our Army under arms–the Army where any of us would
have preferred to serve had it been possible for us–it never gave back an inch of
ground."20 The APL not only held its ground, but its crusade only increased in its
vigor through the end of the war–and beyond.
An impromptu vigilante organization cannot coalesce without hiccups.
The first major mistake by Bureau director A. Bruce Bielaski was to offer APL
badges, at 75 cents apiece, to volunteers. These badges closely resembled
Secret Service badges. Local APL chiefs ordered
flocks of badges and disbursed them to members.
Secretary of Treasury William McAdoo severely
objected to this development because the Secret
Service belonged to his Treasury Department and
was therefore separate from the Justice
Department. Furthermore, private individuals
suddenly wielded badges that gave them the
appearance of federal authority. At an incident on
a train in South Dakota, one eyewitness described,
"[I] was on a train in South Dakota near Brookings
when a man who claimed to be in the Secret
Service, entered the car, displayed his badge to
everyone in it and talked in a loud tone of voice
about his work, his loyalty and said he was looking
for slackers."21 Other APL agents discovered that a
2.2: Members of the
American Protective League
slight wave of the badge could unlock information
could receive a badge for 75
ordinarily considered confidential or gain them free
cents.
admittance to theaters, subways, and parking lots.
The Justice Department tried to solve this problem in two ways. First, APL
leaders scrambled to retrieve as many "Secret Service" badges as possible. The
APL bulletin then reminded volunteers that "under no circumstances shall
[members] state they are members of the Secret Service Department of the
United States…members are not Secret Service Officers of the United States. It
19
Hough, 89.
Hough, 13.
21
R.M. Markham to J.F. McAuley, 1 Oct 1918, OG 22490, p. 103.
20
Machinery of Repression
43
is absolutely necessary that members understand this to avoid…impersonating a
government official."22 Secondly, the Justice Department worked to give the
league more legitimacy. It investigated prospective members and made some
swear to uphold the Constitution. By agreeing to improve its image, the APL
gained even more authority from the Department of Justice to fight espionage.
Many APL agents felt no scruple with using illegal tactics to protect
America. Even the "official" league historian boldly admitted, "It is supposed
that breaking and entering a man's home or office place without warrant is
burglary. Granted. But the League has done that thousands of times and has
never been detected!"23 He then gave a well detailed story of agents secretly
breaking into an office, taking photographs of incriminating evidence, and
sending the photos to the Department of Justice, whereby they made the arrest
and found the evidence where it was described. "You think this case imaginary,
far-fetched, impossible? It is neither of the three," claimed the author. Not all
illegal searches went as planned, however. An agent named Werner Hanni,
while investigating a Lutheran pastor in Emerald, Nebraska, tried to enter the
pastor's empty house. The doors, however, "were all locked and the windows
also and screens on each window, which were fastened from the inside."24 One
agent in Minneapolis had to crawl through a coal chute to get into a woman's
basement, whereby he described the conversations upstairs as seditious.25 After
all that work, a report asserting the subject's innocence would have been
surprising.
Investigations also included sloppy execution. In one case, APL members
seized an abandoned suitcase in a downtown square. They "gingerly" brought it
into a police station, where it was "carefully examined and was found to contain
a quantity of men's soiled underwear."26 Elsewhere, while investigating the
loyalty of the headwaiter at a hotel, two agents became suspicious of each
other's activity. Having both reported the dubious activity of the other, both
men were brought into custody by the Department of Justice.27 Investigative
problems became so pervasive that an APL bulletin had to address them:
22
Joan Jensen, The Price of Vigilance (Chicago: RandMcNally,1968), 16, 44, 48, 49, 52.
Hough, 163-166. While seemingly under no pressure to justify these tactics, Hough nevertheless
claimed, "It [the investigations] did not harm or unsettle any innocent man. It was after the guilty
alone."
24
Eberstein Report, 13 June 1918, OG 173400.
25
Jensen, 152.
26
Portland Telegram, quoted in Clark T. Irwin Jr., "From a Gilded Age onto a World War," in
Greater Portland Celebration 350, comp. and ed. Albert F. Barnes (Portland, ME., 1984), 124.
27
Mock, 14; Jensen, 49.
23
The War to End all Germans
44
"Recent occurrences make it necessary to issue further instructions…No captain,
lieutenant, or operative has the power to arrest….No dictographs shall be
installed, telephone wires tapped, or similar methods employed without specific
authority."28 When legalities came between an agent and a spy, however, such
formalities could be disregarded.
For many agents, America needed protection from more than German
spies and sympathizers. Through proper policing, the APL sought to restore and
protect traditional pietistic canons, especially in the liturgical strongholds of the
upper Midwest. In a telling story of intra-ethnic conflict in Lake Zurich, Illinois,
near the Wisconsin border, members of the German Baptist Church succeeded
in passing a law to close the saloons in the town on Sundays. When they
suspected that the German Lutherans of the town continued to operate taverns,
the minister and deacon of the congregation both wrote the APL and
complained of the conditions in Lake Zurich. A German-speaking agent visited
the town and received tips from the Baptist minister where to find the liquor
sales. He also suggested that the agent visit a church service and listen for
disloyalty, to which the agent also obliged.29 Eventually, the criteria for
acceptance as an agent included "citizens of good moral character." Good moral
behavior typically meant one was a "dry." Noticing this character in the APL, the
War Department assigned APL agents the task to enforce liquor control around
the soldiers' cantonments. Visiting a saloon in Montello, Wisconsin, an APL
agent saw the owner, Rudolph Tagatz, serve a round of beer to three soldiers.
The agent then reported Tagatz's reputation as "bad, both in loyalty and in
character." He then recommended a prosecution "for the good of the
community."30
Agents also subscribed to the idea that the church could serve as an
auxiliary to the government. Hence the APL enlisted many ministers, typically of
evangelical church bodies, to report disloyalty in their communities. A minister
at the evangelical United Brethren Church in Vermillion, South Dakota routed
APL agents to Lutheran ministers in Battle Creek and Plattsmouth, Nebraska,
vaguely telling agents that they both "show strong signs of disloyalty."31
Upstate, Rev. Harvey Kerstetter of a Methodist-Episcopal Church in Mobridge,
28
APL Bulletin, 15 October 1917.
Charles Schmid Report, 16 June 1918, OG 236002.
30
W.E. Cox to R.B. Spencer, "Rudolph Tagatz," 30 October 1918, OG 315182.
31
A. Bruce Bielaski to M. Ebertstein, 8 June 1918, OG 209986.
29
Machinery of Repression
45
South Dakota held close correspondence with agent E.W. Fiske, mainly in
examining area Lutheran ministers.32
A Lutheran coming under investigation became a common occurrence
for the APL. In fact, Lutherans were the favorite target of the organization.33 The
prominent locations of APL headquarters in Lutheran towns was no coincidence.
In his "official" history of the APL, Emerson Hough spared no hostility for the
Lutheran church:
The pulpit was a recognized part of the German system of spy work in America.…It is not
just to accuse all Lutheran ministers of desecrating the cloth they wore. There are good
Lutheran ministers who are loyal Americans without question. At the same time it is
true that more charges have been brought against pastors of the Lutheran church, and
charges more specific in nature, than against any other class or profession in our
country….These are so numerous that one cannot avoid calling the Lutheran pulpit in
America the most active and poisonous influence which existed in America during the
34
war.
Certainly, the fact that many Lutherans were ethnic Germans contributed to this
sentiment of the APL. Moreover, the APL's highly pietistic makeup likely
contributed. Towns permeated by German Lutherans tended to be strongholds
for anti-prohibition efforts and anti-sabbatarian ordinances. This new
organization gave local leaders the opportunity to use the federal authority in
these long-existing community struggles to tip the balance in their favor.
Lutherans also rejected and criticized the efforts of evangelical church bodies to
officially work with government war programs, and this antagonized and
perplexed numerous investigators.
Voices against the policies and tactics of the APL were few and far
between during the war. The most consistent defense of justice, however, came
from John Lord O'Brian, head of the War-Emergency Division of the Department
of Justice. After the war, he stated that "no other cause contributed so much to
the oppression of innocent men as the systematic and indiscriminate agitation
against what was claimed to be an all-pervasive system of German espionage."35
Captain Henry T. Hunt of the Military Intelligence counter-espionage section
also told authors that many "unfounded spy stories…started with the apparent
32
Rev. Harvey Kerstetter to E.W. Fiske, 9 Sept 1918, OG 22490.
Hough, 69.
34
Ibid, 70. Hough served as Captain with the Intelligent Service, so he likely had many personal
brushes with Lutherans. Hough claimed there were over 1,200 total cases investigated. Since
there were about six thousand Lutheran Congregations at this time, that makes for one in every
five churches.
35
Mock, 14.
33
The War to End all Germans
46
object of removing or inconveniencing local political, business, or social rivals."36
Unlike these two detractors, and like almost everyone else, President Wilson
accepted the conspiracy thesis of German espionage. He thus allowed this
counter-conspiracy system to flourish. Until the end of the war, he would
emphasize the threat of subversion and the continued need of organizations like
the APL to win the war.
III. The Committee on Public Information
During the Second World War, President Franklin D. Roosevelt inspired
and reassured the nation through the medium of radio. While "wireless
stations" had emerged across the country by 1917, the technology was not
developed nor pervasive enough to serve that purpose in the First World War.
Also unlike the Second World War, where the attack on Pearl Harbor roused the
American nation, Wilson felt extreme pressure to cultivate–even manufacture–
public opinion. As historian David Kennedy put it, "Here, the Great War was
peculiarly an affair of the mind."37 The result was the all-encompassing
propaganda organization titled the Committee on Public Information.
President Wilson created the Committee on Public Information (CPI)
through an executive order on 13 April 1917. Journalist and Democratic
Muckraker George Creel received Wilson's appointment to chair the
organization. To Creel, the task before him was both daunting and imperative to
the war effort. Previous wars went no deeper than their physical aspects, but in
this war "German Kultur raised issues that had to be fought out in the hearts
and minds of people as well as on the actual firing line."38 The minority against
the war caused endangerment to the war effort, especially when "civilization
[was] hanging in the balance."39 Thus the CPI sought to control nearly every
aspect which concerned home front morale. It published "official" accounts of
war news, sought to counteract antiwar propaganda, and encouraged war
funding and participation in patriotic and Americanization organizations.
Creel considered the Midwest–particularly Wisconsin, Minnesota, and
the Dakotas–to be the area of most pressing need. Rival antiwar organizations,
such as the Nonpartisan League and the People's Council of America, were most
36
Jensen, 292.
David M. Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1982), 46.
38
Creel, 3.
39
Mock, 2-4.
37
Machinery of Repression
47
pervasive in these states. Therefore, the CPI "attacked the [Midwest] at once."40
The Nonpartisan League's "lie" about a "rich man's war" was the most stubborn
belief of these inhabitants. The CPI counteracted this by making this topic the
most frequent in its publications, and it worked with the APL and various state
associations to root out meetings of the Nonpartisan League and similar
organizations.
A volunteer organization called the Four Minute Men became the most
visible presence of the CPI. Around 75,000 voluntary speakers were recruited by
this organization, which gave an estimated 755,190 four-minute speeches to
audiences totaling 314,454,514 people.41 Creel supplied speakers with weekly
patriotic topics, whereby these speakers would find a public location to give a
four minute speech. The most popular location became motion picture theaters,
where speeches were given during "four minute intermissions." A Junior
Division of the Four Minute Men was also instituted. This division worked with
the public schools, which gave assignments and held contests for best speeches
against the "Huns" or for the promotion of thrift stamps. This likely alienated
many German Americans in the public school system. This could explain the
spike in enrollment at Grace Lutheran in Milwaukee during the war, from 61 in
1914 to 114 in 1918, of which school officials labeled 46 "strangers."42
Speakers were often drawn to the Four Minute Men by ambition. On
more than one occasion the CPI reminded speakers in its official bulletin that
they must keep their speeches to four minutes and to refrain from partisanship.
Creel admitted that many men "had the deep conviction that they were William
J. Bryans."43 Those rejected by local officials sometimes even travelled to
Washington D.C. to appeal to Creel by giving him a sample four minute speech.
The CPI often catered to these ambitious speakers by furnishing dramatic
speeches for them. The following "suggested speech" for the Second Liberty
Loan could easily grab the audience's attention:
Ladies and Gentlemen: I have just received information that there is a German spy
among us–A German spy watching us. He is around, here somewhere, reporting upon
you and me–sending reports about us to Berlin and telling the Germans just what we
are doing with the Liberty Loan. From every section of the country these spies have
been getting reports over to Potsdam–not general reports but details–where the loan is
going well and where its success seems weak….Don't let that German spy hear and
40
Creel, 178.
Ibid, 90-93.
42
Quarterly Meeting Minutes of Grace Lutheran Church, Milwaukee, WI, October 1914 and April
1918.
43
Creel, 88.
41
The War to End all Germans
48
report that you are a slacker. Don't let him tell the Berlin government that there is no
44
need to worry about the people in (name of town), and that they are not patriots.
The CPI and many evangelical churches felt no qualm in working
together for the war effort. The CPI highlighted the war activities of churches
and encouraged them to send in sermon extracts which set forth the ideals and
war aims of the nation. The best of these sermons earned publication in the
Official Bulletin. Even prayers were published, such as this one from Rev. Henry
M. Couden of Minnesota: "Dear Lord, deliver us from the hyphenated American,
the pro-German, the spy, the profiteer, the pacifist, the slacker, and all who
would retard the prosecution of the war for human rights, human happiness, in
the establishment of a permanent and world-wide peace, for Christ's sake,
Amen."45 The Four Minute Men also penetrated church doors. The Four Minute
Men organized a church department to "present four-minute speeches in
churches, synagogues, and Sunday-schools."46 The idea spread across the
country. Creel was especially appreciative of this development because it
allowed him to reach out more successfully to rural communities. The CPI also
urged ministers to use the Official Bulletin for patriotic talks to their
congregations. While the CPI experienced much success with this program with
evangelical church bodies, the WELS and other liturgical bodies like the Catholic
Church adamantly rejected this development throughout the course of the
war.47
The CPI issued proclamations with an ominous threat of government
enforcement. The organization itself could not arrest or prosecute, but it held
close contact with the APL or law enforcement agencies which were prepared to
force compliance with the Committee's wishes. For example, the CPI repeatedly
wrote ministers across the country requesting them to preach in favor of Liberty
Loan purchases or food and fuel conservation. All ministers who refused to reply
and report, the letters claimed, would be "noted."48 In one case, a Lutheran
minister named George Meyer did reply to the CPI, but declined the request to
44
Committee on Public Information, "The Second Liberty Loan of 1917: Bulletin and Sample
Speeches," 103.L.8.2F, Folder 101, CPS Records.
45
Creel, 89.
46
Ibid, 270.
47
A. Bruce Bielaski Report, "General Matters," OG 209513; U.S., Committee on Public Information,
The Four Minute Men of Chicago (Pamphlet), 15.
48
John E. Ferris Report, "Paul F. Mayott: Investigation for the Committee on Public Information,"
27 Feb 1918, OG 126654.
Machinery of Repression
49
preach "the doctrine of food conservation from the pulpit."49 Meyer listed
church and state scruples and claimed that all his time and strength were
"occupied in supplying my people with spiritual food." The CPI created a carbon
copy of the letter and sent it to A. Bruce Bielaski, chief of the Bureau of
Investigation. Bielaski reassured the sender that "this matter will receive proper
attention."50 In another case, Creel forced his will on an upcoming movie, The
Spirit of '76. This Revolutionary War film included the Wyoming Massacre,
where British soldiers killed women and children and carried off young girls. Any
Revolutionary War film unsettled authorities, since this might disturb Allied
solidarity in the war. Making the situation worse, the producer, Robert
Goldstein, purposely omitted the Wyoming scene when showing the movie to
the CPI censorship board. Once this offense was discovered, authorities seized
the reels under Title XI of the Espionage Act, the film company went into
bankruptcy, and Goldstein was sentenced to ten years in a federal
penitentiary.51
Creel, nonetheless, stood by his record during the war. "Our European
comrades," claimed Creel, "viewed the [CPI] experiment with amazement…for
in every other belligerent country censorship laws established iron rules, rigid
suppressions, and drastic prohibitions carrying severe penalties."52 While "rigid
suppressions" were not the norm, the historian David Kennedy could only see
Orwellian Themes in the American World War I experience, with an
"overbearing concern for correct opinion, expression, for language itself, and
the creation of an enormous propaganda apparatus to nurture the desired state
of mind to excoriate all dissenters."53 The CPI may have accomplished this while
bearing a benign face, but the implication of force lurking behind it could be
tacitly assumed.
IV. Other Organizations
At the urging of President Wilson, various local and state organizations
arose alongside the federal bureaucracy. Minnesota and Wisconsin were the
49
Rev. George Meyer to George Creel, 19 July 1917, OG 43413. This brush with the CPI and the
investigation were only the beginning of Meyer's troubles. His school was dynamited later in the
war.
50
A. Bruce Bielaski to N.I. Antrim, 2 November 1917, OG 43413.
51
E. W. Finch Report, "Committee on Public Information–Division of Films, 24 Jan 1919," OG
344061; Mock ,42, 148.
52
Creel, 23.
53
Kennedy, 62.
The War to End all Germans
50
first states to heed the call. The Minnesota Commission of Public Safety and the
Wisconsin Council of Defense were instituted within the first week of the war.
The goals of these organizations closely matched those of the Committee on
Public Information, and in many ways they served as its handmaiden. The
German Lutheran experience varied widely based on the assertiveness of their
state organization. While the state organizations differed little in their
propaganda and conservation efforts, their repression of "harmful" behavior
varied considerably by state.
Minnesota Germans drew the short straw since their state was home to
the most active organization. Some members of the Minnesota Commission of
Public Safety (CPS) could make agents of the American Protective League seem
like devoted constitutionalists. Judge John McGee, a dominant personality
within the CPS, illustrates the organization well. He charged that the policy of
the Justice Department had been a "ghastly failure from the beginning." What
the government should have done, claimed McGee, was to organize firing
squads across the nation immediately after the war was declared. "I know of no
objection or reason why there should be any further delay in organizing the
squad, or why they should not, when organized, work overtime in order to make
up for lost time," asserted McGee.54 The CPS, on the grounds of a wartime
emergency, gave itself explicit powers to do almost anything. Among these
powers included seizure of property, mass discarding of textbooks, requirement
of anyone to appear before its agents, the issue of subpoenas by district courts,
and the examination of the conduct of public officials.55 The CPS remained
exceptionally busy throughout the war; it processed an average of 18 sacks of
mail weekly and investigated 682 cases concerning sedition.56 Many of these
letters came from citizens reporting disloyal neighbors or social enemies.
The Wisconsin State Council of Defense, although policing a state with
similar demographics as Minnesota, was lenient by comparison. In fact,
Governor Emanuel Philipp's unusual restraint earned him frequent criticism. His
enemies suggested that his ties to German American interests were "rather too
intimate for the times."57 Council leaders prided themselves in their ability to
reason the disloyalty out of dissenters. Magnus Swenson, the chairman of the
54
Jensen, 120.
La Vern J. Rippley , "Conflict in the Classroom: Anti-Germanism in Minnesota Schools, 19171918," Minnesota History 54 (1981), 171-173.
56
Minnesota Commission of Public Safety, Report of Minnesota Commission of Public Safety (St.
Paul: L.F. Dow Co., 1919), 29.
57
Frederick Luebke, Bonds of Loyalty: German Americans and World War I (Dekalb, IL, Northern
Illinois University Press, 1974), 296;
55
Machinery of Repression
51
Council, shared his strategy for dealing with dissent: "First, stop their talking,
then get after them with personal persuasion if possible."58 Swenson then gave
a story of his dealings with a Lutheran minister to display his comprehension of
his fellow citizens. Upon a receipt of a report of disloyalty, the Council of
Defense asked the "erring cleric" to come to the state capital and "have a talk
with Mr. Swenson." The Lutheran minister arrived in a state of unmitigated
alarm, admitting that he had shared his opinion that the United States should
not have declared war on Germany. "Why?"
Mr. Swenson asked, and he summarized the
reply: "Out of a tremulous jumble of
LaFolleteism, pacifism, and ignorance, the real
reason presently emerged. The man honestly
believed that the United States sought, in this
war, to expunge Germany and German
civilization from the world, by joining other
nations in a plan of overwhelming conquest."
Swenson "kindly" replied, "Sit down and let's
talk it over." He then presented America's
cause for war in "simple terms," to the
listener's "growing astonishment...It was all
new to him, as new as if he had been a
resident of central Prussia." After his sit-down
with Swenson, the Lutheran minister draped
2.3: Posters like this one exemplify
the cozy relationship between
an American flag over his pulpit and "preached
church and state in the Wisconsin
a sermon, alien in language, but otherwise one
State Council of Defense.
hundred per cent patriotism." Swenson likely
rounded the edges of his story, and the pastor likely changed his behavior more
out of fear than from his influence, but his account highlights the stark contrast
between Minnesota and Wisconsin in dealing with disloyalty.59
Like the national organizations, the state councils and commissions
possessed moral and religious characteristics consistent with evangelical piety.
Both Wisconsin and Minnesota used their wartime powers to create and
enforce anti-saloon legislation. Wisconsin shortened their operating hours and
58
Samuel Hopkins Adams, "Invaded America: Winning the Battle in the Middle West," Everbody's
Magazine (February 1918), 32.
59
Samuel Hopkins Adams, "Invaded America: Winning the Battle in the Middle West," Everbody's
Magazine (February 1918), 31-35. The article never gives the name or location of the preacher,
and no record has been found of the conversation, so the identity of the pastor is unknown.
The War to End all Germans
52
discontinued the practice of free lunches in saloons. Minnesota skipped these
formalities and simply closed saloons, forty-two of them in the Minneapolis area
alone. The CPS claimed this maneuver protected the soldiers and increased the
efficiency of workers. In one of its twenty-one official orders dealing with
saloons, the CPS declared bartending to be unpatriotic "in lieu of the serious
shortage of farm workers."60 This moral philosophy naturally drew protestant
evangelical ministers to the cause. Twenty-four ministers served on county
boards for the Minnesota CPS, while forty-six served on the Wisconsin Council
of Defense. None were from the Wisconsin Synod or its sister synod, Missouri.61
These organizations also encouraged activities to which these synods felt
aversion. The CPS requested "all ministers in [Freeborn] County to speak
patriotic sermons and to unite in one big loyalty meeting in the city of Albert
Lea."62 This service was attended by over 1,500 worshippers, but the Wisconsin
Synod nervously abstained. During a Liberty Loan drive, the CPS sent letters to
each of the county directors urging them to use local talent, specifically
"preachers…who are used to persuade and convince their neighbors."63 Baptist
minister R. Bedford of Luverne, Minnesota, for example, answered this call and
delivered loyalty speeches until "he was no longer asked to do so, presumably
because he was too forceful to suit those in the county who had charge of such
activities."64 Other ministers took up the pen, such as Methodist minister S.R.
Maxwell, who wrote an editorial for the CPS which "exposed the Non-Partisan
League." Ecumenical war efforts pleased the CPS the most, one headline of the
Official Bulletin read, "Priests and Protestant ministers travel together for the
Liberty Loan cause."65 During a cold Wisconsin winter, an army colonel posted a
notice in the local newspaper at West Salem, Wisconsin, and claimed Christ
Lutheran and the two other churches in town "must [worship] together to save
coal."66 Wisconsin Synod Lutherans, conscience bound-not to confuse church
and state convictions, not to mention distressed over a war against their
60
Commission Report, 84-85.
Minister statistics compiled from the official histories and records of the Wisconsin Council of
Defense and the Minnesota Commission of Public Safety, which listed board members from every
county in their respective states.
62
Freeborn County General Liberty Loan Program, April 1918, 103.L.8.2F, Folder 101, CPS Records.
63
Minnesota Public Safety Commission to County Directors for Liberty Loans, 8 Oct 1917,
103.L.8.2F, Folder 101, CPS Records; W. O'Brien to Public Safety Commission, 10 Oct 1917,
103.L.8.4.
64
Robert F. Davis Report, 16 June 1918, OG 188937.
65
Rochester [MN] Post Record, 6 August 1918.
66
H.R. Zimmerman to Otto Engel, 1 March 1918, OG 5025.
61
Machinery of Repression
53
relatives, could only have their duress increased from this outside religious
pressure to conform.
Private patriotic organizations also preached and enforced the gospel of
loyalty. The most prominent of these was the Wisconsin Loyalty Legion. A
contributing factor to the Legion's strength was disappointment at the
"inaction" of the Wisconsin Council of Defense. Thus the Legion attracted
members with extremely bold objectives. Even director George Creel of the CPI
admitted that their "patriotism was a thing of screams, violence, and extremes;
they outjingoed the worst of jingoes, and their constant practice of extreme
statement left a trail of anger, irritation, and resentment."67 Wisconsin Synod
minister Otto Engel also used choice words to describe the Legion to his friend:
"Those people are traitors to the Constitution; they are traitors to the United
States."68 Legion members visited "hotbeds" of disloyalty attempting to
intimidate them to change their behavior. During elections, members would
often attend to polling places to discourage "Un-American," that is, Socialist,
voting.69 The Wisconsin Loyalty Legion came dangerously close to mob rule.
Other vigilante activity across the nation, however, lost all sense of the rule of
law.
V. The Mob Rules
As if organizations like the American Protective League, the
Commission for Public Safety, and the Loyalty Legion were not enough,
frustrated American citizens took it upon themselves to punish disloyalty. In one
case, it turned deadly. A rowdy mob lynched a German American named Robert
Prager on 5 April 1918 after dynamite went missing from a coal mine he worked
at. It was unlikely that Prager was the thief; one year earlier, he volunteered to
be in the United States army, but being blind in one eye his service was
declined.70 Prager's story is merely the most famous of countless mob
infractions against German Americans. A rope was cast around the neck of a
Wisconsin German American, John Deml, before the mob shrank from the
"ultimate solution" and settled for beating and bloodying its victim.71 Tar-and67
Creel, 180.
Otto Engel to Ernst Goerner, 3 Dec 1917, OG 5025.
69
Lorin Lee Cary, "Wisconsin Patriots Combat Disloyalty: the Wisconsin Loyalty Legion and Politics,
1917-1918," (M.A. thesis, University of Wisconsin, 1965), 49.
70
For a detailed account of the Prager lynching, see Luebke, 3-24.
71
Luebke 249, 274.
68
The War to End all Germans
54
feather "parties" were commonplace across the nation. In Ashland, Wisconsin,
two tar-and-feather incidents occurred within a two week period. In one of
those incidents, a professor from Northland College in Ashland was dragged
from his home, beaten, given a "generous" coat of tar and feathers, and left by
the side of the road a mile from town.72 In Milwaukee, a mob mounted a
machine gun outside Pabst Theater to prevent the staging of the Germanlanguage production, Wilhelm Tell.73
Other types of public humiliation were also used. Yellow paint on
churches, monuments, and homes became the most common public mark of
disloyalty. A "bond slacker" in Evansville, Wisconsin was taken from her home,
placed in a lion cage salvaged from a junk dealer, and hauled around the city
square.74 This mob action actually inspired the APL to police more fervently. The
APL's official publication, Spy Glass, claimed the organization could "forestall
mob action by wiping out the conditions under which loyal and peaceful citizens
sometimes resort to lynch law." Mob violence, therefore, was not the fault of
the mob, but rather the disloyalty which provoked it.75
Like government organizations, mobs specifically targeted Lutherans. In
Illinois, a mob beat a Lutheran pastor and his wife because the minister
preached in German.76 In Peshtigo, Wisconsin, members from a German
Lutheran church even joined a mob that forced one of their fellow Lutherans to
purchase Liberty Bonds and to kiss the American flag.77 Actions against Lutheran
parochial schools were also common. In the worst case, two Lutheran schools–
one in Herington, Kansas and the other in Lincoln, Missouri–were burned to the
ground.78 Another Lutheran school in Schumm, Ohio, was dynamited.79 In Walla
Walla, Washington, a German Lutheran school was boarded up. School was
delayed while the obstructions were removed. The next night, the school was
again boarded up by unauthorized persons. Pastor P. Schmidt made an appeal
to Sheriff Duffy of Benton County, who informed him that he had no authority
to act. Schmidt then made his plea to Mayor Shirk, who "did his duty as his
72
Ashland Daily Press, 1 April 1918.
Ludwig Kreiss to Robert Lansing, 6 April 1917; State Department Records, 763.72111.4763.
74
Falk, 403.
75
Spy Glass, 10 Aug 1918.
76
Bielaski Report, "Lawlessness," 20 October 1918, OG 290513.
77
Luebke 282. The Peshtigo incident likely involved WELS Lutherans from Zion or St. John, these
being the most prominent Lutheran churches in Peshtigo.
78
Ibid, 281.
79
Ibid, 281. The dynamited school belonged to Rev. George Meyer's congregation, mentioned
earlier for penning a letter to the CPI.
73
Machinery of Repression
55
name would indicate," an APL agent happily reported.80 For some, going to
school constituted an act of bravery. As WELS teacher George Pullman was
instructing students, a bullet was fired through the window of the classroom.
Fortunately, no one was injured.81
In early 1918, a yellow coat of paint was splattered on Wisconsin Synod
minister A.C. Baumann's home in Prescott, Wisconsin. Yellow paint on one's
home usually caused embarrassment and hurried labor to remove it. Baumann,
however, left the new paint job untouched for quite some time and "stated that
he is proud of it," according to the testimony of Rev. Iny, a local minister and
member of the Wisconsin Council of Defense.82 In spite of this vandalism,
Baumann refused to change his habits. He still "prefers to talk the German
language on the street and in the pulpit, rather than the English language. He
never attends any of the Loyalty meetings…associates with pro-Germans, and
takes no interest in war work."83 Baumann personified the character of many
Wisconsin Synod Lutherans after the declaration of war, who, despite this
machinery of repression, or in ignorance of it, displayed a combative nature
toward the war policies with which they disagreed.
80
E.L. Wells Report, 5 April 1918, OG 178895.
Esther Pullman Weidner, "Remembering George & Hilda Pullman," Balge Family Records.
82
C.I. Rukes Report, 11 Sep 1918, OG 188937.
83
Ibid, 1.
81